May 19th
This blog Cutting it Straight will now be the site where, predominantly, I post book reviews. I will be blogging on all matters related to preaching over at my new blog www.school4preachers.wordpress.com so if you’re interested please look me up there, and if you know of a good preaching blog or website that I have not already linked to, please point me in the right direction.
A Week in the Life of Corinth
May 9th
When I am teaching hermeneutics, I teach my students that before they try and apply any passage of Scripture, they have to ‘go to Corinth’ first. It’s a shorthand way (that I learned from someone else) of saying that they have to determine what was the original application to the original readers of the passage before they can determine the contemporary application. In that sense, Corinth is representative of the original readers/hearers of any biblical text.
Ben Witherington has done us a great service in writing this fictional account of life in Corinth, incorporating into his story such biblical characters as Paul, Priscilla and Aquila and Erastus, and weaving a strong, gripping story line around a week in their lives. There’s intrigue, skullduggery and even a hint of romance, all set in a very convincing portrayal of everyday life in this important Roman colony city.
As well as the fictional account, Witherington inserts a series of ‘A Closer Look’ features’ in which he explains, or gives the background to, features of the life and times of Corinth and its people – such things as the Roman baths, homeschooling, Greco-Roman beliefs about the afterlife, the Roman calendar, and many more, and this is where this book really comes into its own, for me at least. As you read the story you feel as if you are walking the streets of Corinth and expect to turn a corner and see Paul or one of his friends. There some illusions to the more lurid aspects of the Corinthian way of life that we know of from elsewhere, but never in an unhelpful way.
There are a couple of comments that slightly irritated me, such as the statement that “there was no reason to think that Paul expected that gift (of prophecy) to be confined to the apostolic age. Indeed, 1 Corinthians 13 suggests it will continue until faith becomes sight when the Lord returns.” (p155); or the possibility that “the marks of Christ” Paul speaks of in Galatians 6 might be stigmata (p43). These are, however, small blemishes, and I will certainly be recommending this valuable book to my students. Next time I have to ‘go to Corinth’ I will do so with much greater knowledge and insight.
Listen Up!
May 6th
Taking Jesus’ words, “Consider carefully how you listen” (Luke 8:18), Christopher Ash gives us some useful advice on how to listen to sermons with seven positive ways followed by three on how to listen to bad preaching.
Each section is very short and begins with an example which compares two people and their different attitudes to attending church and listening to sermons. Ash gives a few paragraphs of guidance on each heading and then offers some very practical steps we can take to improve our listening in that regard. The language is very simple and jargon-free and extremely easy to read.
He then gives advice on how to listen to three types of bad preaching – dull, biblically inaccurate and heretical. By the way the advice on that last one is ‘don’t!’ He closes with seven suggestions for encouraging good preaching: pray for the preachers and tell them you are praying for them; be there and thank them afterwards; be prepared to be constructively and supportively critical; relate to your preachers and be on the look out for those with gifts of preaching and encourage them.
As Ash says, there are countless books on preparing and preaching sermons but almost none on listening to them. This is an extremely useful corrective, and small and cheap enough to allow most churches to buy a copy for all their congregation which is something I would warmly commend.
Listen Up! A Practical Guide to Listening to Sermons
Christopher Ash
The Good Book Company 32 Pages ISBN: 978-1906334673
Blog Review
May 4th
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the Lord has been opening up a new ministry for me and this has led me to re-evaluate my blogging commitments. In the summer I will be stepping down from my current position and will be beginning work on setting up a new, independent, Bible College in Edinburgh, imaginatively named, Edinburgh Bible College! This is an exciting but daunting venture but we are confident of the Lord’s hand in all of this. We will be formally launching the new work in September 2013 but running a few courses from this autumn in order to make the work known. We have a provisional website up and running here where you will find information about the ethos and vision of the new work.
A key ministry of this new College will be the training of preachers and teachers of God’s word and so we are also establishing a School for Preachers, a ministry of the College.
I have also set up a School for Preachers blog and this is where my current Blog Review comes into play! This present site, Cutting it Straight, covers a very wide and, in the long term, unsustainable, range of subjects related to preaching and teaching of the Scriptures, including book reviews and comments. So I need to refocus.
As of now, I will limit Cutting it Straight, this site, to book reviews and will be blogging, but strictly on the subject of preaching, at the School for Preachers blog so, if you’re interested, please look me up there, and if you know of a good preaching blog or website that I have not already linked to, please point me in the right direction.
The Christian Quotations element of this site will also gradually migrate to a new site: here
Moishe Rosen – Called to Controversy
Apr 28th
I have known the names of Moishe Rosen and Jews for Jesus for many years but have to admit that I knew next to nothing about the man or his ministry, so was glad to get a complimentary copy of this biography, written by his daughter Ruth, for review.
Biographies written by a close relative do not always work but this one does, as Ruth Rosen manages to avoid a sentimental perspective on her father’s life and work and achieves a creditable amount of objectivity. Rosen was a converted Jew who worked for many years with the American Board of Missions to the Jews (ABMJ) before branching out to spearhead his own ministry which has become an international missions force.
For some reason I am especially drawn to biographies of bold, risk-taking, visionary Christian leaders and Rosen certainly fits into that category. Like others of that ilk, those very qualities don’t always make them easy to work with or for, and Rosen was no exception. His daughter traces his reluctant progress as he goes for theological training and then joins the staff of ABMJ, taking on more and more responsibility and leadership and discovering his strengths and weaknesses. There are several leadership lessons that could be learned from Rosen’s life:
- He was a man of great passion; first and foremost for God, and then for his fellow-Jews who were blind to the truth about the Messiah. There is, in my opinion, a shortage of passionate leadership around in Christian circles today. Too many managers and not enough leaders. Too many ‘leading from behind’ or taking the temperature of opinion before launching out in obedience to God’s call on their lives.
- He was a man of deep commitment to the Scriptures. This, of course, the foundation of all true Christian leadership – an unwavering commitment to the authority and truth of God’s Word and its continued power to transform and shape lives. Rosen believed in the power of the preached Word.
- A man of integrity. Early on in his working life he was exposed to some less than scrupulously honest practices and vowed never to follow those examples.
- A man of humility. Rosen was not unwilling to admit, sometimes publicly, that he had got something wrong and made mistakes. He was aware of the dangerous impact that speaking to large crowds had on him and sought to avoid them in the future for his own spiritual good.
- A man with a big heart. Rosen was not territorial. He wanted to work with other likeminded groups who shared his vision and burden for the Jewish people and wasn’t always protecting his own patch.
I have read better literary works, but my vision has been enlarged as a result of reading this volume, my heart warmed and my faith stirred. What more can I say? Read it for yourself.
Suffering Well
Apr 27th
Over the years I have read a number of books on suffering but this one is refreshingly different and comes at this important subject from some very helpful and biblical angles which are all too often neglected or ignored in some other books that address this subject.
Paul Grimmond looks at different types of suffering experienced by Christians and while his list includes the usual topics of persecution for the sake of Christ and of living in a fallen world he also briefly touches on the suffering caused by compassion for others, as when we observe the hardness and resistance towards the gospel on the part of those we love or the grief we feel, like that often expressed by the Psalmist in 119, when we see the things of God being slighted.
Read my full review here
Jesus the Evangelist
Apr 25th
How refreshing to find a challenging and stimulating book on evangelism that isn’t based on the latest marketing technique or sales pitch but goes to the life and ministry of Christ as a model from which to learn lessons. Richard Phillips analyses “Jesus’ personal evangelism” from three chapters of John’s Gospel, chapters 1, 3 and 4, and, without falling into the trap of prescribing a list of do’s and don’ts, challenges his readers to think through the way they reach out to others with the good news of the Gospel.
Anyone interested in God-honouring, Christ-exalting, biblically faithful evangelism – and that ought to be all of us! – will greatly benefit from reading and learning from this excellent book.
Read my full review here
The Last Word
Apr 23rd
I am grateful to Christian Focus for sending me a complimentary copy of Wallace Benn’s ‘The Last Word’ as part of a blog tour.
Wallace Benn has given us a warm commentary on John 13-17, Jesus’ teaching to his disciples in the Upper Room on the night of his betrayal. Benn takes us through the teaching of Christ, section by section, dwelling on one or two aspects – such as the work of the Holy Spirit – to broaden the teaching beyond the actual content of the Saviour’s discourse which is under consideration. It’s a careful and thoughtful exposition of the passage and he brings out some, for me at least, original insights which I greatly appreciated. Like all good expositional preaching it’s also full of excellent application. If you’ve never really studied this important part of John’s Gospel, this would provide a good introduction and may leave you wanting to delve deeper, which would be no bad thing.
I sense the book is the literary version of a series of sermons, and occasionally they would be better heard than read, to be honest. There are at least two illustrations which are repeated in the book, something that is perhaps more obvious in the book than in the sermon, but that aside I would warmly commend this little, easy to read, devotional commentary.
The Last Word
Wallace Benn
Christian Focus 200 Pages ISBN: 978-1845507770
