The New Studies in Biblical Theology series has the equivalent of a conservative Protestant imprimatur: “Edited by D.A. Carson.” (A J.I. Packer blurb was the going imprimatur, but he became a little too profligate with it [see no. 7 here] and we had to pick a new...
ST vs BT
I saved this little quote in my draft folder for some time, and when I pulled it out again I forgot where I got it. It sounded like John Frame, and I did a Google Books search for it fully expecting to see Frame’s Doctrine of the Word of God come up. But no, it was...
Edwards on Church Music, the Ordinances, and our Affections
The “sacraments” or “ordinances” of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are, in part, little pieces of art: miniature dramas that highlight precious truths. They are parallel in a significant way to church music, as Jonathan Edwards explains in his classic book, The...
That’s Why They Call it Pop
Very interesting! Does anybody in New York listen to classical music? The closest we got was Sinatra! (Or Terry Gross, I suppose.) HT: Jason Kottke HT: Alan Jacobs
Another Problematic KJV Rendering
“The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” All modern translations render that last phrase with another word: “who suppress the truth.” In contemporary English, to “hold the...
Usage Determines Pronunciation, Even of Obscure Old Testament Names
My post on Puritan names brings up an incidental point. I have heard preachers and laypeople alike trip up many times over the pronunciation of obscure Old Testament place and people names. I myself recently flubbed “Kibroth-hattaavah” in Sunday School. Who can blame...
Does God Have Feelings? Does God Have a Body?
In a section of my dissertation critiquing the view that God has no emotions, I wrote the following: If God is impassible, Zephaniah 3:17 is puzzling: “[The Lord] will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud...
Religion and Sex in the Bible when Viewed Through the Lenses of Liberal Presuppositions, Or, Nick Kristof Needs to Read More than One Book on This Controverted Topic
I have long enjoyed reading about the globe-trotting adventures of Nick Kristof, arch-liberal and New York Times columnist. Whatever his political ideology, he has literally given his own blood to save lives and shelled out his own cash to buy two girls out of sexual...
A Sword that Cuts Off Liberals’ and Conservatives’ Heads
Sometimes the principled reasons people give for taking a position are just window dressing, good for public display but only incidental to the heart of the matter, which is the state of their hearts. —Stanley Fish, The Trouble with Principle (Cambridge, MA: Harvard...
Zeal-of-the-Land Busy
I’m still reading God’s Secretaries, and I’ve arrived at a section in which Nicolson details the umpteen rules the KJV translators were supposed to follow. The second is this: 2. The names of the Profyts and the holie Wryters, with the other Names in the text to be...