Text, Community & Mission

Today I received a package from IVP containing four Christopher Wright books:  The Mission of God, and the trilogy Knowing God the Father Through the Old Testament, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, Knowing the Holy Spirit Through the Old Testament.  I cannot wait to dig into all of these, especially The Mission of God which has received incredible reviews from everyone.

Even with my reading for grad school, I still like to be working through an additional book that is not for a class.  So I am trying to find something that is an absolute must read.  Something that is groundbreaking or extremely important.  I am talking Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, The Ressurection of the Son of God, Lord Jesus Christ type important.  I would love to hear your suggestions (and if you wanted to provide me with the volume, that would be grand as well)!  But seriously, any advice?

Many bloggers have commented on the over-hype that President Obama has faced these last few weeks. While I would agree that most people on the street have way too high of expectations for what the President is going to be able to accomplish, yet he does continually try to rebuff them, I do think there are 3 things that we can look at with some level of excitement concerning yesterday’s events.

1. I think yesterday was a celebration that a people have changed enough in 60 years that someone who could not have voted is now voted to the highest office in the land, and have changed enough in 130 years that someone who would have only been considered 3/5 of a person is now the most powerful person in the world.

2. While I cannot feel the same joy in the most personal way as many black people do over the President, I can understand it. Whether we like it or not, our culture is dominated by white men. The vast majority of the well respected people in our culture are (more…)

New Testament Greek Vocabulary (Audio CD)                                                                                  Publisher: Zondervan
Author: Pennington, Jonathan
ISBN-10: 0310243823 | ISBN-13: 9780310243823
Binding: Paperback
List Price: $22.99 
Westminster Bookstore: $14.94 - 35% Off 

Readings in the Greek New Testament (Audio CD)                                                                          Publisher: Zondervan
Author: Pennington, Jonathan T.
ISBN-10: 0310253225 | ISBN-13: 9780310253228
List Price: $19.99 
Westminster Bookstore: $13.99

I would like to thank Andrew Rogers from Zondervan for providing these two CD sets for me to review.  I have previously used Bill Mounce’s Vocabulary CD and found it helpful.  However, that CD is most useful to those using Mounce’s grammar as their introductory grammar as it lists the words in accordance with the book’s chapters. (more…)

After finishing the final four chapters of BVABG I have realized that I cannot summarize these chapters in the same way as I did with the previous.  While these chapters are longer than the previous and treat more material, the entry level nature of BVABG only allows the topics to be discussed very briefly, so summarizing it would almost be just copying from the text.  

Chapters 7, 8 and 9 discuss the pragmatics of the tense forms, present and imperfect, aorist and future, perfect and pluperfect, respectively.  Each chapter discusses the semantics, spatial/temporal qualities, pragmatic aktionsarts (with a number of examples given) and includes practise exercises.  The following aktionsarts are discussed: (more…)

Here are the new books I was lucky enough to purchase for the semester’s classes.  I already had most of the books required, so here are the ones I bought.  I love it when professors assign a lot of books because then my wife cannot get angry with me for spending our money on them.

Dictionary For The Study Of New Testament Greek – Matthew S. Demoss

Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum – Kurt Aland

Jesus & The Gospels – Craig Blomberg

The Historical Reliability Of The Gospels – Craig Blomberg

Paul: An Outline of His Theology – Herman Ridderbos

Campbell’s sixth chapter begins the second part of the book: “Verbal Aspect and the New Testament Text”.  The first chapter entitled “Verbal Lexeme Basics” is included because as Campbell describes, aspect and lexemes work together to produce aktionsart.  Transitive lexemes are described first, and defined as a verb where the action is performed on an object by the subject.  Then, an intransitive lexeme is one that does not require an object or does not act in its object.  In the case of the later, the object is unaffected by the verb, “to hear music” is given as an example.  Those lexemes that can be transitive (more…)

Nick is hosting a contest for a copy of Calvin’s Institutes.  If you do not have a copy but are interesting in reading some Calvin, check it out.

One of the things I love most about the writings of D.A. Carson is the conversational nature with which he discusses even the most complex ideas and subjects.  This example is exactly what I mean.  The following quote, from An Introduction to the New Testament, is speaking of 2nd century traveling preachers of whom the Didache warned.

“Inevitably, some shysters arose, fluent in God-talk, who found this was an agreeable way to earn a living, even though they were woefully unqualified.” (Emphasis mine)

Now I do not know whether the term used originated with Carson or Moo, but I can guess.  If opportunity to ask him ever arises I certainly will inquire and report back.  Either way, it made me chuckle.

Last Friday I did a trial run to see how long it would take to get from my house to TEDS in the snow. On the road, I live 8 miles from school. Last Friday, it a little bit under an hour. So this morning, my wife and I left for class a full hour before class. However, today it took 1 hour and 45minutes. So my graduate career started off with me 45 minutes late for my first class.