Reading Digest #8 (Feb 28, 2010)

Book writing is still at full-throttle pace for me, and it’s been that way for all of January and February. I have completed the rough drafts of the thickest theological chapters (1-6) and have now shifted my attention to writing the much more practical—and much less intense—chapters (7-14). And since the intensity of writing has dropped off a tad I’ve decided to intensify the reading. For this season I have decided to focus on theology.

Here’s my current list:

• Brooke Foss Westcott, The Victory of the Cross (Macmillan, 1888). I found this old gem on the bottom shelf in a dusty used book warehouse in DC. It’s a collection of sermons from a noted bible scholar and the Bishop of Durham, on the topic of the cross. I completed it the other day. The book fed my soul. I’ve quoted from it on the blog in the recent past and plan to post a couple other excerpts soon enough. You can read it online for free here.

• Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (WJK, 2005). The book was written to encourage the church see the relevance of theology. Already I like what I read: “he who is tired of doctrine is tired of life, for doctrine is the stuff of life” (xiii). Nice. Also, he writes that theology is essential because it helps us (1) cope with life, (2) celebrate the activity of God, (3) communicate the works of God inside and outside the church, and to (4) criticize what is false. Vanhoozer’s goal in this book is to present theology as a drama, which seems fitting enough at first glance. Whether or not I’ll end up biting on the theo-drama approach I cannot say this early. But any book that emphasizes the seriousness of theology in the Christian life is worth reading. Alister McGrath says this book is “essential reading for all concerned with the nature and future of doctrine.” That’s me!

• Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope (Fortress, 1993). Of all the branches of theology I think eschatology is the most underdeveloped. Not that there aren’t a lot of books that bicker about things like timelines, because those are plentiful. I mean books that seriously explain how eschatology informs the Christian life, how it protects us from worldly thinking, and how our future hope—not merely our past memory—shapes our theology and our priorities as Christians. I’ve only begun reading but I’ve eaten at café Tübingen before and they serve only lobster, a dish with hardly enough exegetical meat feed a man or to justify the time, the effort, or the price. Having read Moltmann in the past I cannot endorse the book or paste quotes from it on this here blog.

• John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. I continue to plug away at the Institutes. Is there a better work of theology? Nope, not even my man Herman comes close to Calvin. My goal is to reread The Institutes cover-to-cover in 16 months. Right now I’m focused on 2.2.1–2.13.1 (or 1.255-475) where Calvin focuses in on free will, depravity, the law, and the mediator. Calvin is so relevant to our modern questions. Like what is the purpose behind the Lord sending earthquakes? Calvin has articulated the clearest and most careful answer to this question that I’ve read (see 1.17.1). Rich and relevant.

• Martin Luther, Off The Record With Martin Luther (Hansa-Hewlett, 2009). For fun I’ve been reading this new translation of Luther’s Table Talk. I’m tempted to quote my favorite excerpts but that would get me into trouble. This is a wonderful collection of colorful quotes from Luther’s free-tongued dinner conversations over meat, potatoes, and a mug.

So that’s what I am reading at the moment. How about yourself? I love hearing from you, and especially if what you are reading is less nerdy.

Martin Luther and Aesop’s Fables

Not long ago a blog commentor scolded me for featuring Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings on my blog. I guess its not spiritual enough or something. She didn’t say. (Why she didn’t haul me over the coals for Wodehouse is beyond me!).

But I was not offended by the comment. Actually I was a bit saddened. It breaks my heart that some Christians would not consider accepting LOTR for what it is, a magnificent moral epic that can only be explained—as is true of the greatest literature—as a gift from the benevolent hand of God.

Sometimes it seems that contemporary Christians can use some help in properly appreciating the gifts of literature that God has blessed us with. And I’m not just talking about Christian literature either. Martin Luther understood this fact well. Today I came across these two quotes about how Martin Luther treasured the ancient pagan book Aesop’s Fables (think: the tortoise and the hare).

The first quote is by George Fyler Townsend in the introduction to his translation of Aesop’s Fables (2005), page 10:

“These fables … were among the books brought into an extended circulation by the agency of the printing press. … The knowledge of these fables spread from Italy into Germany, and their popularity was increased by the favor and sanction given to them by the great fathers of the Reformation … . Martin Luther translated twenty of these fables, and was urged by Melanchthon to complete the whole; while Gottfried Arnold, the celebrated Lutheran theologian, and librarian to Frederick I, king of Prussia, mentions that the great Reformer valued the Fables of Aesop next after the Holy Scriptures.”

And here is the man himself, Martin Luther, as quoted in his Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 54:210–211:

“It is a result of God’s providence that the writings of Cato and Aesop have remained in the schools, for both are significant books. Cato contains the most useful sayings and precepts. Aesop contains the most delightful stories and descriptions. Moral teachings, if offered to young people, will contribute much to their edification. In short, next to the Bible, the writings of Cato and Aesop are in my opinion the best…”

Interesting.

No such ‘thing’ as grace

Sinclair Ferguson has a new book coming out soon, By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me. Can’t wait to read it. Whenever I think of grace I am reminded of his message on John 15 from the 2007 Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference in Grantham, PA. Sitting in a sweltering chapel listening to him preach for the first time in person my understanding of grace was shaped and I came to discover the depth and riches of our union with Christ. I’ll never forget when Ferguson said this:

“The union with Christ we have is not that we somehow share His grace. Because–follow me carefully–there actually is no ‘thing’ as grace. That actually is a Medieval Roman Catholic teaching, that there is a ‘thing’ called grace that can be separated from the person of Jesus Christ, something Jesus Christ won on the Cross, something He can bestow on you, and there are at least seven ways it can be bestowed on you and they all, as it happens, turn out to be in the hands of the church. And you can have this kind of grace, and this kind of grace, and this kind of grace …

There is no such ‘thing’ as grace! Grace is not some appendage to His being. Nor is it some substance that flows from us: ‘Let me give you grace.’ All there is is the Lord Jesus Himself. And so when Jesus speaks about us abiding in Him and He abiding in us–however mysterious it may be, mystical in that sense–it is a personal union. Do not let us fail to understand that, at the end of the day, actually Christianity is Christ because there isn’t anything else; there is no atonement that somehow can be detached from who the Lord Jesus is; there is no grace that can be attached to you transferred from Him. All there is is Christ and your soul.”

Happy birthday Johnny Cash

There ain’t no grave can hold my body down
There ain’t no grave can hold my body down

Video:

‘Our best havings are wantings’

From a letter written by C. S. Lewis (5 November 1954) and published here:

“About death, I go through different moods, but the times when I can desire it are never, I think, those when this world seems harshest. On the contrary, it is just when there seems to be most of Heaven already here that I come nearest to longing for the patria [the heavenly homeland]. It is the bright frontispiece which whets one to read the story itself. All joy (as distinct from mere pleasure, still more amusement) emphasizes our pilgrim status: always reminds, beckons, awakes desire. Our best havings are wantings.”

Blessed Assurance

From Sinclair Ferguson’s lecture “Blessed Assurance & Bickering Theologians” (iTunes):

“Calvin’s great emphasis in The Institutes is that the Christian life is adoption into the family of God and that he is such a father as you would hope to be yourself as a father, who desires to leave his children no doubt whatsoever whether they really are his or not.

Part of the drive in Calvin to focus on Christ is a drive against the demonic doctrine of God that he saw in the Roman Catholic Church because it presented a father who needed a gentler son and a gentler son who needed an even gentler mother in order that the son’s arm might be twisted, that the father’s arm might be twisted, until at last—contrary to their better judgments—to give grace and salvation to lost sinners.

So you can understand the thrill and the joy of the reformation, to discover that the son is not hidden behind his mother, that the father is not hidden behind the son, but the son fully discloses the heavenly father. And as heavenly father his desire is not to leave his children in doubt, whipping them constantly into a spirit of bondage but to give to them the spirit of sonship by whom they cry ‘Abba! Father!’ [Galatians 4:6]. This explains the vigor and the joy that we find in the expressions of assurance both in Luther, but particularly in Calvin, whose theology is dominated by the wonderful release of having certitude. A huge motif in Calvin’s theology is this: The gospel gives us certitude.”

How to Abuse Fiction

From C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge, 1961), pages 84–85:

“Many of the comments on life which people get out of Shakespeare could have been reached by very moderate talents without his assistance. For another, it may well impede future receptions of the work itself. We may go back to it chiefly to find further confirmation for our belief that it teaches this or that, rather than for a fresh immersion in what it is. We shall be like a man poking his fire, not to boil the kettle or warm the room, but in the hope of seeing in it the same pictures he saw yesterday. And since a text is ‘but a cheverel glove’ [from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night] to a determined critic—since everything can be a symbol, or an irony, or an ambiguity—we shall easily find what we want. The supreme objection to this is that which lies against the popular use of all the arts. We are so busy doing things with the work that we give it too little chance to work on us. Thus increasingly we meet only ourselves.”

God on Display

From a sermon by C. H. Spurgeon on 2 Corinthians 4:6:

“Never did the love of God reveal itself so clearly as when he laid down his life for his sheep, nor did the justice of God ever flame forth so conspicuously as when he would suffer in himself the curse for sin rather than sin should go unpunished, and the law should be dishonored. Every attribute of God was focused at the cross, and he that hath eyes to look through his tears, and see the wounds of Jesus, shall behold more of God there than a whole eternity of providence or an infinity of creation shall ever be able to reveal to him.”

Friendship

“He left His friends in darkness dim,
But three He chose to take with Him.
He longed that they His watch should share,
While He poured out His soul in prayer.
My soul, learn thou from this to seek
True friendship’s joy when thou art weak.”

-Hallgrímur Pétursson

HT: T-Bomb

The Essence of Sin

From The Victory of the Cross by Brooke Foss Westcott (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1888), page 23:

“The essence of sin is
selfishness in respect of men, and
self-assertion in respect of God,
the unloving claim of independence,
the arrogant isolation of our interests.”