Category: Recommendation

Reading Romans Backwards (Scot McKnight)

This book review looks at why Scot McKnight calls us to read the early chapters of Romans in light of the concluding ones.

After two weeks’ vacation driving the South Island of New Zealand, I’m feeling overwhelmed by the natural wonder: majestic mountains, large lakes, fantastic fjords, and glistening glaciers. Each day we began by setting the GPS coordinates to where we needed to end up, and then took our time to enjoy the stunning scenery on the way.

Scot McKnight suggests we read Romans like that. Begin with where Paul wants the church to end up, the destination spelled out in Romans 12–16. That’ll help us make sense of the route he takes to get them there.

Romans is a magnificent presentation of the gospel, setting out all God is doing in Christ to set the world right. But it was never intended as armchair theology. It’s lived theology. That’s the term Scot uses 100+ times in Reading Romans Backwards: A Gospel of Peace in the Midst of Empire (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019).

It’s only January, but this is the best book I’ve read so far in 2025. Here’s why.

Continue reading “Reading Romans Backwards (Scot McKnight)”

Recognizing genres in the Psalms

In the first three psalms, we discovered the rich diversity within the Psalter:

  • A wisdom psalm promised blessing on those who walk in the Lord’s ways (Psalm 1).
  • A royal psalm enthroned the Lord’s anointed to represent his reign (Psalm 2).
  • A lament voiced the king’s struggles to the one who rescues him (Psalm 3).

It helps to recognize the different kinds of psalms (genres). They’re generally categorized into these types:

Continue reading “Recognizing genres in the Psalms”

Justification by Faith (Michael Bird)

Here’s the best summary I’ve ever read of this crucial doctrine: Justification by Faith: Debates Old and New. It’s a post by Michael Bird, on the Logos blog.

It’s easy to become so attached to the view of our own tribe that we don’t hear what others are saying. Michael Bird doesn’t make that mistake. He understands and fairly represents how justification by faith has been understood in the traditional debates (Catholicism versus the Reformers) and in current scholarship (new perspective on Paul, apocalyptic Paul, and Paul with Judaism).

Set half an hour aside to bring yourself up to speed. You’ll benefit from years of Dr Bird’s research, discussions, and engagement with historical and current thought.

His outline:

Continue reading “Justification by Faith (Michael Bird)”

Tools of trade: Logos 10

With the right tools, you can make every minute count.

It started 15 years ago when I bought a Bible study package from Logos. I’d used several other Bible software packages, but Logos was lifechanging.

Following the initial tutorials, I was finding words and phrases in English and original languages, comparing views in commentaries, and pursuing cross-references and themes faster than I could type. I was adding highlights and searchable notes as I read. In one hour, I could complete what previously took a whole morning.

Each year I add more resources, gradually building a library for everything I need for my research into the kingdom of God. That includes:

Continue reading “Tools of trade: Logos 10”

Recent gospels

David Fitch summarizes the Protestant gospels of the last 100 years. Which one represents you? Could this help your conversations with others?

Message shapes mission. Our gospel defines what we do when we go. We need clarity on what God’s gospel calls us to do, the message we embody in his world.

David Fitch traces six gospels prominent in Protestantism in the last century. His article — “The Many Gospels: How the Gospel Shapes the Church for Mission” — is Chapter 12 of the 2021 book, Living the King Jesus Gospel: Discipleship and Ministry Then and Now (link below).

Here’s a summary of his 6 gospels.  See if you recognize them.

Continue reading “Recent gospels”

Discipleship in Philippians

“All I ask is that you live as his kingdom, honouring the good news that he is king” (Philippians 1:27)

Disciple is a kingdom word. A disciple is literally a trainee, an apprentice. Jesus trained disciples to proclaim the restoration of heaven’s reign arriving in him, sending them out to enact the kingdom.

Many books on discipleship don’t start from there, but here’s one that does: Living the King Jesus Gospel: Discipleship and Ministry Then and Now (Cascade Books, 2021). Seventeen pastors and scholars built on Scot McKnight’s work on the kingdom, covering discipleship in the New Testament, in Christian history, and in our shared life today. In this post we’ll just look at Nijay Gupta’s chapter on Philippians.

What would you see as the main theme of Philippians? Joy? Partnership? Jesus’ servant heart and ascension? These themes are present, and Michael Gorman is right to treat 2:5-11 as “Paul’s master story.” (Journal of Theological Interpretation, 1:1-2, 2007, 147– 170).

Nijay Gupta titled his chapter, “Living as Good Citizens of the Gospel Kingdom of Christ according to Philippians.” Why?

Continue reading “Discipleship in Philippians”

Academic or devotional? How do you read?

Is formal study of Scripture different to personal devotional reading? How do we keep them separate? Should we?

How do I balance my academic reading of Scripture with my devotional reading? It’s a question I get from friends, students and pastors. I understand why: if we read the Bible only to write papers or deliver sermons, we may be missing the main point: the revelation of God.

But I’ll be honest with you: I don’t have separate times for academic and devotional reading. I don’t read sometimes for theological, structural, and critical analysis of the text, and other times for personal sustenance and development.

Continue reading “Academic or devotional? How do you read?”

God and Guns

Not just what to think but how to think on a controversial topic.

My first degree (B Th) was from a Bible college in the American Mid-West. One of the things I wasn’t prepared for was how many church people owned guns and said they would use them to protect themselves.

Guns are a big topic in the US, so it’s refreshing to see some good scholars engaging this debate. Two professors from Fuller Theological Seminary have collated the work of seven others in a new book called God and Guns: The Bible Against American Gun Culture published by Westminster John Knox Press in November 2021.

Now another NT scholar is blogging his responses. Ben Witherington III is someone I consult regularly (most recently 2 days ago). His understanding of how rhetoric functioned in the social setting of the New Testament is second to none. That’s why it was such a thrill to tour Israel with him back in 2014.

So, if you’re interested in how some good American Bible scholars think about this topic, Ben’s blog posts are your way in:

Continue reading “God and Guns”

Wenham shows us how to approach the Psalms (free book)

Gordon Wenham’s excellent book “The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms” is free this month (Nov 2021).

Gordon Wenham’s ebook, The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms is free this month (November 2021).

I’ve learned heaps from Wenham about understanding the Old Testament in context. Particularly, his commentaries on Genesis (2 volumes, WBC) and Leviticus (NICOT) and Numbers (TCOT) are so insightful, and Story as Torah: Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically (T&T Clark, 2000) makes sense of difficult passages.

In this book, he guides us to the Psalms, showing us how to:

  1. celebrate the God revealed in the Psalms
  2. present our needs to him
  3. read Psalms in the context of the whole story of Scripture
  4. understand Psalms in light of the Messiah
  5. apply the ethics of the Psalms
  6. handle the imprecatory Psalms

He then pulls it all together with a specific example from Psalm 103, before the final chapter on how the other nations fit with the Psalms.

Do you treat the Psalms as stand-alone songs? Or were they assembled in a meaningful way, so that one Psalm relates to the others around it? How do you read them in context?

Chapter 7 shows how. From Psalm 103: The Song of Steadfast Love:

Continue reading “Wenham shows us how to approach the Psalms (free book)”

Joshua Jipp’s Messianic Theology

What does the word ‘Christ’ mean? Joshua Jipp shows that the New Testament’s message is that Jesus is the Messiah, the God-appointed king for humanity. That’s good news.

Over 500 times the New Testament refers to Jesus as the Christ. That’s twice a chapter! It must be important.

What are we saying when we call Jesus the Christ? Is it just an alternative name? Or is it making a statement about who he is and the authority he carries? How is the Christ the centre of the whole narrative, the one who reconciles earth to heaven’s authority?

You’d think that after 2000 years we’d have something this basic sorted out, but not everyone understands the Christ as a proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah — the leader anointed by God so heaven’s reign is restored to earth.

Christology is the branch of theology devoted to studying the Christ. Understanding Christ as king is often just a minor point of Christology. That’s being challenged. For example, last year Joshua Jipp wrote The Messianic Theology of the New Testament (Eerdmans, 2020) to show this:

Continue reading “Joshua Jipp’s Messianic Theology”

Zechariah: a kingdom perspective (free commentary)

Free commentary containing the 2021 blog posts on the Book of Zechariah.

Here is a free commentary on Zechariah for you to download (PDF, 1MB). It contains all our 2021 posts on Zechariah, including the introduction (below). Enjoy.

Continue reading “Zechariah: a kingdom perspective (free commentary)”

Kingdom summary (Mark Keown)

This Kiwi nails it: big picture of the kingdom, in brief.

Update 2020-11-10: The Logos Black Friday sale has this book for 1/3rd price this week.

How do you wrap your head around a topic as big as the kingdom? Here’s a great summary from New Zealand scholar, Mark Keown.

The first volume of his Discovering the New Testament surveys the Gospels and Acts. The rest of the book (pages 417–548) then pulls the whole story together as the kingdom of God.

I’m taking a break this week. I think you’ll enjoy this sample from Mark Keown:

Continue reading “Kingdom summary (Mark Keown)”

Spiritual formation as belonging

Dallas Willard wondered, “Is salvation itself a new and active attachment with God that forms and transforms our identities?”

We teach Spiritual Formation because we want disciples developing character, not just downloading information. Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline has been a favourite text, along with several from the late Dallas Willard. If you enjoyed those, check out Jim Wilder, Renovated: God, Dallas Willard, and the Church That Transforms. Continue reading “Spiritual formation as belonging”

Ephesians: a kingdom perspective (free commentary)

Here it is. Our first commentary on a book of the Bible, from the perspective of the kingdom of God.

We covered Ephesians over six months. Those 50+ posts have now been compiled into a free, downloadable commentary.

As the reverse of the title page explains, you have permission to use it yourself, share it with others, use it academically — basically anything except selling it for profit.

Here’s the PDF (1 MB). This is the best format for general use. Enjoy.

Update 2022-04-18: commentary updated (typos fixed, quotations included).

For Logos users

If you use Logos Bible Software and would like to compile this as a Personal Book, here’s the DOCX (600 kb) and cover (62 kb). Continue reading “Ephesians: a kingdom perspective (free commentary)”

On grace: John Barclay, “Paul and the Gift” (book review)

“A gift can be unconditioned (free of prior conditions regarding the recipient) without also being unconditional (free of expectations that the recipient will offer some ‘return’).”

The word “grace” encapsulates so much of the gospel, so I was blown away by John Barclay’s masterful study of this word: Paul and the Gift, published by Eerdmans in 2015. It’s big (672 pages), pricey (US $55), and academic, though at the time of this review it was available on Kindle for US $4.50.

If you just want a concise summary, choose Barclay’s Paul and the Power of Grace (Eerdmans, 2020, 200 pages). For me, the larger book was worth the effort. It’s a superb example of how to pursue a word study: I learned as much from his method as his content. Continue reading “On grace: John Barclay, “Paul and the Gift” (book review)”

Time to learn? (Riverview College)

Enrol now for 2020.

Update 2021-02-07: Riverview College is not operating at present (COVID).

If you’re in Perth and serious about serving Jesus, would you consider devoting a year to learning how to do it well?

In twelve months at Riverview College, you could have:

  • a Diploma of Ministry (10574NAT),
  • leadership masterclasses from experts like Tim Healy and Aash Parmar,
  • hands-on ministry experience (internship).

The Diploma studies are your deep-dive into the Bible, theology, practical skills, and personal development: six hours of lectures each Thursday. On Wednesdays you’ll be engaged with the Riverview staff, soaking up the leadership masterclasses, and serving in the internship. There are also assessments to complete for the Diploma, and you will be serving in a ministry team on the weekends as well.

This Facebook video is your invitation.

Continue reading “Time to learn? (Riverview College)”

Tom Wright on Galatians (podcasts)

Update 2020-06-25: The links in this article have expired.

Grappling with Galatians is a free series of podcasts by N. T. Wright, provided by Regent College (Vancouver, Canada).

There are five podcasts (A, B, C, D, E), each 2 – 3 hours (70MB MP3), accompanied by 36 pages of notes (3 MB, PDF). Or you can download the podcasts and notes in one go as a Zip file (370 MB).

While I’m not a podcast junkie, you’ll find this set helps you come to terms with what Galatians meant to the people of central Turkey who first received the letter, and therefore what it could mean for us today. Continue reading “Tom Wright on Galatians (podcasts)”