A New Commentary on Galatians

Zondervan has recently released a new series of commentaries titled the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament.  This week Zondervan’s blog, Koinonia, is hosting a blog tour providing reviews of the commentaries on Matthew, Galatians and Ephesians.

Below is my contribution with a review of Thomas Schreiner’s commentary on Galatians.

Returning To God

I’m thinking a little bit today about the Old Testament idea of turning and returning to God.  Many times in the Bible, we are encouraged to turn to God.  But the Bible has something interesting to say about what happens when we return to God.

Of Dead Kings and Borders

I’m working my way through Deuteronomy with my small group.  (Actually, they would probably say that I am inflicting Deuteronomy ON them!)  It is sometimes odd to me the ways that God communicates with us, and Deuteronomy is full of such examples.  For instance, the verse that seems to randomly mention a dead king in the midst of a description of borders.  What’s that about?

Will 2011 Be the Year of the NIV?

It is hard to deny that 2009 is the year ESV (English Standard Version) with release of the wildly popular ESV Study Bible.  But a recent announcement from Zondervan about the NIV 2011 may make 2011 the year of the NIV.

Are Evangelicals Broadening the Path to Salvation?

One of the major points in the debate between some in the Emerging Church Movement (Wittmer’s “Postmodern Innovators”) and conservative evangelicals regards salvation: is it necessary to believe in Jesus Christ to be saved?  While this debate has not been resolved, I’ve been surprised to see some conservative evangelicals potentially broadening the path…

The Patriot’s Bible

For those of you who just love a good intra-evangelical debate, another one is brewing at Out of Ur surrounding a new study Bible, The American Patriot’s Bible.  Here are the important posts:

• A video promotion of the Patriot’s Bible
• A two-part scathing critique of the Patriot’s Bible (part 1, part 2)
• A response to these critiques from the editor of the Patriot’s Bible

What do you think?

Jesus: An Ordinary Guy (continued)

This week Koinonia completed its short series on Jesus’ humanity.  Here are the final two posts:

• Where did Jesus grow and mature?
• How do we start emulating Jesus’ example of maturity?

Jesus: An Ordinary Guy

Yesterday at GLBC we spent time interacting with Matthew 13:53-58.  This brief narrative reveals something very important about Jesus: those who lived with him and his family for 30 years in Nazareth saw him as an ordinary guy.  Far from being heretical, it is absolutely necessary that we see Jesus as an ordinary guy.  Why?  First, for our salvation: “the unassumed is unhealed.”  Second, for our example.  Interestingly, Koinonia has a series this week on the importance of the humanity of Jesus.  Here is the first post.

Christian Ethics Summarized

I’ve been reading Gordon Fee’s commentary on Philippians for some upcoming student lessons.  In a footnote to his comments on Philippians 1:9-11, Fee provides a great summary of Christian ethics: “whose purpose is God’s glory, whose pattern is Christ, whose principle is love, and how empowering is the Holy Spirit.”  A great summary, and alliterated to boot!

The Oddness of Jesus’ Resurrection

Jesus’ resurrection as portrayed in the Gospels is odd.  That is, the Gospels do not portray the Resurrection in the way that we would expect (or more importantly, that a first-century Jewish person would expect).  Read N. T. Wright’s thoughts on the oddness of Jesus’ Resurrection and be encouraged.