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Review – In His Image Devotional Bible (NLT)

October 28, 2010 By Randy Olds 2 Comments

I have a stack of Bibles beside my be and another handful in my bookshelf, but this is the first time that I have spent much time reading through the New Living Translation (NLT). I received this from Tyndale House Publishers for review last week and I must say that it has been a joy to read through.

Throughout the Bible are pages devoted to the attributes of God; Truth, Unchanging, All-Knowing, Creator, All-Powerful, Ever-Present, Good, Holy, Just, Love, Merciful, Personal Spirit, Righteous, and Sovereign. Wherever the editors came across one of these attributes in scripture, they devote a devotional sidebar on that page explaining how that verse brings out that attribute of God and then offer a Reflection and a Prayer.

At other places in the Bible, certain phrases are highlighted, such on page 1000, where “Son of Man” is highlighted in Matthew 26:64, and a very brief explanation is given for the phrase. On page 517, “Adonai” is highlighted, with a small box explaining how in Job 28:28 Adonai means “lord” or “master”.

This is not a “Study Bible”, nor is it meant to be one, but I think that it is a good companion Bible to take along to read by the lake, or perhaps in an evening quiet time. It would probably also make a good gift for a young person or even “young Christian” to become familiar with God’s word before they move on to a “meatier” study Bible. It will take it’s place in the stack of bibles on my nightstand, and will quite likely be my choice of bibles on nights when I just want to read a little and relax in God’s presence.

Filed Under: blogging, Book Review, The Bible Tagged With:

Wisdom and Ethics in That “Right Strawy Epistle”

October 10, 2010 By Randy Olds 4 Comments

[James] throws things together so chaotically that it seems to me he must have been some good, pious man who took a few sayings from the disciples of the apostles and thus tossed them off onto the paper. James is a right strawy epistle.

Martin Luther

In the midst of all of my research and study on the doctrines of hell, I am still finding time to continue reading through Ben Witherington’s book, The Indelible Image, Volume 1.  I have just gotten to the portion where he discusses the epistle that Luther considered “right strawy“.

Witherington starts right out to say that James has not been given the respect due to it because many scholars and theologians have simply not studied the Sapiential Literature such as The Wisdom of Solomon or Sirach well enough. He starts the section on James with:

John Elliot said that for many New Testament scholars, the Letter of James ranks as an example of the junk mail of the New Testament. This is both a travesty and a tragedy. In part this judgment arises because few New Testament scholars have been trained in the Wisdom literature or to appreciate its merits as a tool for doing theology and ethics. p 296

Witherington devotes over thirty pages discussing the ethical thought of James, breaking the book down into a number of categories. He first discusses the book in terms of it’s message to Jewish Christians and contrasts Paul’s message with James and harmonizes Paul’s intent with that of James. He then devotes a several pages to James’ Christology, a subject that some scholars think does not in fact exist. Witherington then discusses the mercy and judgment of God found in James before devoting a good number of pages on the whole Faith/Works issue in James. He completes the section with a chapter viewing James as a revelatory sage, like his half-brother Jesus.

Throughout the section on the Letter of James, Witherington compares various Wisdom literature and looks at how James often draws from those books.

Oh, one more thing. Witherington discusses the passage that contains James 3:6. You know, the one where James talks about the tongue setting us on a course for Hell (Gehenna). You guessed it. Witherington writes that Gehenna was a smoldering garbage dump outside of Jerusalem. ~sigh~

Filed Under: Book Review, James, Wisdom Literature Tagged With: ,

That Was Easy…Free Books!

September 16, 2010 By Randy Olds Leave a Comment

I’ve known for a while that free books were available to bloggers by various publishing houses for simply signing on to review the books that you received, but I had yet to take advantage of the opportunity. I finally went to Tyndale House Publishers page for their blogger network and signed up yesterday.

Today I get the email that I have been approved to receive Free Books!! I have a limited choice to begin with, but I understand that the available books will grow over time. Anyway, I will be getting a new NLT In His Image Devotional Bible in the mail soon…for FREE!

I think that I’m going to get on the ball and sign up for all of the different Publishers that I can. Nick Norelli has a great page with about 16 different publishing house links that I think I am going to spend the rest of the night going through!

Filed Under: blogging, Book Review

Book Review : Predestination and Free Will – Four Views

September 13, 2010 By Randy Olds 4 Comments

One of the great theological and philosophical questions that men and women have wrestled mightily with for centuries is looked at from four differing viewpoints in this book. How do you reconcile Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom? How can we be truly free if God is completely in charge?

The book is organized by four essays on the questions that arise from Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom by four theologians with differing views. John Feinberg and Norman Geisler approach the subject from two different “moderate” Calvinist viewpoints, with Bruce Reichenbach and Clark Pinnock countering with two differing Arminian perspectives. In between each essay, the other authors are each given space to rebut the viewpoint given.

John Feinberg, although he considers himself to be a “moderate” Calvinist, presented pretty much what I considered a classical Reformed essay on the subject matter. I found his essay to be quite frustrating at times. Although he tried to wriggle away from the fact that he is classically Reformed, I kept on saying, “Well, that is simply five-point Calvinism. God is in charge of everything and we as humans have absolutely zero, zip, nadda free will!” I must say that I quite enjoyed Clark Pinnocks rebuttal of Feinberg where Pinnock essentially said just that. But although I did not agree with his arguments, I still found his presentation to be very well put and easy to follow.

Norman Geisler on the other hand, while also maintaining a deterministic model of God’s sovereignty, tried to assert that God simply foreknows all things without determining them. Geisler presented his case well, but in the final analysis, I found his arguments for God’s foreknowledge incompatible with human free will, I think primarily because he rejects scientia media (middle knowledge) as a factor. I must admit that I had difficulty following his reasoning at times. I’m not sure if it was because he was presenting it poorly, or if it was just my understanding of what he was presenting.

Bruce Reichenbach presented what I considered to be a fairly typical Arminian view of the subject matter and argued that God limits His power in order to grant Human Freedom.  While I found most of his presentation to be clear and his use of scripture to be sound, I did find his summation to be a little maddening. Essentially at the end of his essay, Reichenbach states that Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom remains a mystery. God is fully sovereign and we as humans are fully free. Clark Pinnock applauded Reichenbach’s essay with the exception of one point, and that was the matter of God’s omniscience.

As for Clark Pinnock, I thoroughly enjoyed his essay, as well as his critiques of all of the other essays. Pinnock was an Arminian, but with one key difference from many other Arminians, in that he was an Open Theist.  This was my first introduction to Open Theism, and while I’m am not sure that I can fully accept Open Theism completely, it presented arguments that I had not heard before. Pinnock maintains that God chooses to limit His power to grant Human Freedom and essentially does not know the future absolutely. Granted, Pinnock maintains that God knows most of the future, but not every single detail, and by God purposely limiting His power, he is able to grant full Human Freedom. Needless to say, Feinberg and Geisler pretty much cut him to pieces in their critiques, but I enjoyed his views.

I can’t say that this book will answer all of a person’s questions about Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom, but it will definitely give you plenty of food for thought. I personally with that the Arminian author’s would have been able to expound a bit more on some of the Calvinist “proof-texts”, but there was not enough room in the book. While all of the author’s did cite scripture, much of the polemics were more of a philosophical nature rather than presenting  solid theological and scriptural arguments. Still, I learned a lot from reading this book, and was able to see many things in ways different than I had before. It will stay in my bookshelf and I will probably read it again at a later date. I may also look into reading the late Clark Pinnock’s other writings.

Note: I wrote another article about this book last month entitled: Can A Timeless God Grant Free Will?

Filed Under: Book Review, Clark Pinnock, Free Will, Predestination, Uncategorized Tagged With:

“The Imitation of Christ” on Humbly Dealing with Interpersonal Strife

July 31, 2010 By Randy Olds Leave a Comment
Note: part 5 of a series as I live-blog my reading of “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas a Kempis

It seems to me that God is speaking to me through this little Book even when I am not looking for it. Today my prayers have been for God to help me show His grace and love even to those people to whom I am not naturally inclined to wish to show such grace to. For whatever reason God has seen fit to allow me to be placed into a situation where I am going to have to spend quite a bit of time with a person with whom I am not overly fond of (and I am quite sure that the feeling is mutual).

Additionally, there are a couple of other people with whom I am associated with who continue to be a thorns in my side. It seems at times that these individuals simply want to get some sort of reaction out of me by their words and actions. At times it seems that they are intentionally striving to bring out the old pre-Christian Randy who in times past would have reacted with spite and venomous words.

I suppose that everybody has these types of situations from time to time. Whether it be an in-law, a nosy neighbor, an annoying co-worker, an oppressive supervisor or even an overbearing parent, we are often placed in situations where we have to spend extended periods of time with people who tend to bring out the worst in us. Sometimes this might only be for a day or so as with a visit to in-laws with whom we may have had previous disagreements and at other times it might be for years as with an irritating neighbor or co-worker that we just can’t seem to get away from.

After praying again on the subject, I spent some time this evening thumbing through my Bible looking for the appropriate scriptures for what I am dealing with in these situations, and although I know where to go for Jesus’ and Paul’s familiar words on loving our enemies and being ambassadors for Christ and such, I was hoping to discover something new. Perhaps some sage scripture that I had missed before or maybe just read over, not realizing the full import of it.

After an hour or so of looking for the “Just Right” verse with no luck, I decided to take a break from the Bible and go back to my reading of “The Imitation of Christ.” I had just finished Book One yesterday, so I set forth to conquer Book Two. About a third of the way down on page four of Book Two the answer that I was digging through my Bible for was waiting for me;

“BE NOT troubled about those who are with you or against you, but take care that God be with you in everything you do. Keep your conscience clear and God will protect you, for the malice of man cannot harm one whom God wishes to help. If you know how to suffer in silence, you will undoubtedly experience God’s help. He knows when and how to deliver you; therefore, place yourself in His hands, for it is a divine prerogative to help men and free them from all distress.

It is often good for us to have others know our faults and rebuke them, for it gives us greater humility. When a man humbles himself because of his faults, he easily placates those about him and readily appeases those who are angry with him.

It is the humble man whom God protects and liberates; it is the humble whom He loves and consoles. To the humble He turns and upon them bestows great grace, that after their humiliation He may raise them up to glory. He reveals His secrets to the humble, and with kind invitation bids them come to Him. Thus, the humble man enjoys peace in the midst of many vexations, because his trust is in God, not in the world. Hence, you must not think that you have made any progress until you look upon yourself as inferior to all others.” Book 2; 2.1

Wow!

I have learned that God speaks to me in many different ways and it is not always in the manner in which I expect. Sometimes the answers come quickly, sometimes not. I suppose that God was saving this little portion of my book for when He knew that I would be in need of it.

I have read this little passage over and over again since God showed it to me. I think that this may be one that I will have to write down on an index card and carry along with me for the next few weeks. I’ve carried around Bible verses on index cards at times when I needed a particular verse to give me strength, so I think that I’ll do the same with this quote by Kempis.

As I have written previously here and here, Humility is an area of my life that I know that God wants me to improve in. I used to be a very proud, arrogant and even narcissistic person, and those un-Christlike character traits are still a part of me that I struggle with at times. So what I have here, in these situations with certain people that I have difficulties with, are opportunities for me to grow in humility.

I have begun to learn that there is always more than one way of looking at a life situation that is uncomfortable for me. I can either whine and complain about it, or I can look at it as an opportunity for spiritual growth. It seems to me that my current situation is one that God is giving me so as to have an opportunity to grow in Humility. So along with His help, as well as Thomas Kempis’ helpful words, spiritual growth, Humility, and becoming more Christ-like is what I will seek after as I walk the path that God has laid out before me.

Filed Under: Book Review, humility, Thomas à Kempis, Trials and Tribulations

“The Imitation of Christ” Book One Thoughts

July 30, 2010 By Randy Olds Leave a Comment
Note: part 5 of a series as I live-blog my reading of “The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas a Kempis

I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I began “The Imitation of Christ”, but so far I have gotten much more than what I bargained for.

I just finished Book One, entitled “Practical Advice About the Spiritual Life” (the book is comprised of four “books”), and I wanted to jot down my thoughts about what I have read so far.

First, for those who are not familiar with this writing, it begins to become clear somewhere through the middle of first book that the intended audience of the book was initially for those entering life in a monastery. Basically, it was a book written by a Catholic monk for other monks, but obviously the appeal of the book spread far beyond Kempis’ original target audience.

There obviously were a few references to living in a monastery that I originally dismissed as “does not apply”, but upon further reading and reflection I began to realize, that in many ways  life in a  monastary can simply be a microcosm of living in the larger world. Obviously the same problems and temptations arise there as elsewhere.

Book One was around forty-five pages of writing separated into twenty-five subsections containing, well, as the title puts it “practical advice on living a spiritual life.”

Throughout this first book, over and again was humility and self-denial emphasized. A number of times Kempis writes about how easy those living in the monastery have it as compared to the Saints and the Desert Fathers (those ascetics who chose lives of complete denial a few hundred years before Kempis’ time).

He spends time dealing with temptations, gossip, pride, laziness and judgementalism; things that all of us in the contemporary world still have to fight day after day. The “practical advice” that he gives is timeless and obviously can apply to a fifteenth century monk as equally as a twenty-first century modern Christian. Over and again, I found myself in the pages and over and again I found priceless nuggets of wisdom that I can apply to my own imitation of Christ.

I plan to start on Book Two: “Considerations Inviting Us to Live an Interior Life” tonight. It appears to be a bit smaller of a Book than Book One, but I will try and post at least one or two posts as I read through it.

Great book so far, I’m glad that that Craig Adams mentioned it.

Filed Under: blogging, Book Review, Thomas à Kempis
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