Part Three This is my final installment in my lengthy review of G. K. Beale’s A New Testament Biblical Theology. During the previous three parts of the review I have tried to provide the thrust of Beale’s “already-not yet new creational” model with few critical remarks (though, as a “Dispensationalist” I clearly have a bias against the author’s new way of presenting covenant theology). In this piece I shall enter into criticism more plainly. I had envisaged a detailed critique …
Category: Book Reviews
Review of Counseling the Hard Cases: True Stories Illustrating the Sufficiency of God’s Resources in Scripture, by Stuart Scott and Heath Lambert, editors, Nashville: B&H Publishers, 2012, xv + 308pp., hdbk, $32.99. This book is a much needed fillip to those of us who try falteringly to help hurting people by pointing them back to Christ and His Word. There are many resources now available to the biblical counselor to guide him or her in their attempts to become better …
Part Two As we continue to the end of this impressive book we come to the second part of Beale’s two chapter treatment of supercessionism (although the doctrine permeates the whole work). The author is among those who believe all the phenomena in Joel’s prophecy recited by Peter on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:16-21 came to pass, even though it didn’t really. But that is ancillary to his argument, which is that the prophecy was aimed at Israel …
Part One The Argument of the Book (continued) I said in the first part of this review that Beale is a supercessionist (he believes the Church is the “true Israel”), and the second half of the book makes this crystal clear (although it is not absent from the first half). Although building on things said in the first half, I found the allusions and Beale’s interpretations of them (especially in light of what was overlooked in the contexts), to be …
A Review of G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011, xiv + 1047 pages, hdbk, $54.99. G. K. Beale is among the most prominent evangelical scholars. He is acknowledged in the evangelical world as being something of an expert on the relationship of the OT to the New. Together with D.A. Carson he is the general editor of the Commentary of the Use of the Old Testament in the New, and the subtitle of …
I thought I would put this up here as I put a little effort into it and I need to post 🙂 Some of the men in our Church are reading through the new book edited by D. A. Carson & T. Keller, The Gospel as Center. I was given the chapters on Scripture and Creation to write about. Here is what I wrote about chapter 3, “The Gospel and Scripture: How to Read the Bible.” “Hello, Pastor asked me …
Review of Greg Forster, The Joy of Calvinism, Wheaton: Crossway, 2012, pbk, 205 pages This new book by Greg Forster is written to set the record straight as regards what Calvinism is. The author feels that Calvinism is often misrepresented by non-Calvinists, so he writes to help them understand this theology. Forster’s book joins the shelves of books along the same lines that have been written by Calvinists. That said, what he has produced is to be commended for its …
A brief review of Robert H. Gundry, Commentary on the New Testament: Verse-by-verse explanations with a Literal Translation, Peabody, Massachussetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2010, hdbk, 1072 pages. There is not much of Robert Gundry’s literary output that I would recommend. Up till now the one exception has been his excellent little book, Jesus the Word According to John the Sectarian, which is a very stimulating and edifying study of the Logos theme which runs throughout John. So when I saw that …
Review of The Return of Christ: A Premillennial Perspective, edited by David L. Allen & Steve W. Lemke, Nashville: B & H Publishing, 2011, pbk, 285 pp. Following on the heels of their generally excellent Whosoever Will (reviewed here), Messrs Allen and Lemke have produced another collaborative effort for Southern Baptists and beyond. Although the previous book suffered a bit from two or three below par essays, it made up for its poor start with a number of quality contributions. …
The first part of this review is here. As Lemke continues his seven theological concerns with the doctrine of irresistible grace he criticizes the usual Reformed belief that regeneration precedes faith. Even though many Calvinists insist that this is a logical order only, the quotations Lemke adduces from Sproul, Piper and Boettner are subject to a little more probing, which, in brief, Lemke does (139-140). In particular Loraine Boettner’s quote is assessed. Boettner wrote, “A man is not saved because …
