My friend shared this link on facebook–it had me laughing out loud as they say. Seriously, one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time:

No Pets Clause [emailsfromcrazypeople.com]

I just finished Walton’s book on Genesis, and will be reviewing it shortly. The last section of the book is a Frequently Asked Question section. One of the questions involves the difficulty of understanding some aspects of the Bible, which Walton answers wonderfully. In his answer, he also gives a slight apologetic for scholarship:
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I’m far too cynical. This is somewhat a result of my nature, but in the past two years or so I’ve seen my cynicism grow. There have been times when this has been checked, and went dormant for a while, but it would eventually come back. There used to be a time when I was a lot more idealistic, and a bit of a dreamer. This would cause me to marvel at life. I would get lost in nature (literally and metaphorically) and see God’s beauty and creativity. I would rejoice at stories of life being given—whether it be a birth, or the selfless acts of someone towards someone else, or…etc. And sure, those things still get to me. On a good day. If I search hard enough. They certainly don’t spring up in everyday occurrences like they did before. The problem is, I still talk as if I was astonished each and every day. I wasn’t intentionally lying. I just didn’t realize that I hadn’t been lost in astonishment and awe quite like I used to be. This is because it’s a subtle movement, where I haven’t lost all astonishment. Just enough over a period of time to not notice it.

John Walton offered this corrective in Proposition (=chapter) 17 of “The Lost World of Genesis One:”
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Whenever anyone asks me how old I think the earth is, I usually go through a huge spiel on believing the earth is younger than most Old Earthers think, and older than most Young Earthers think. I then go into something about the literary features of Genesis 1, the beauty of the frame-work view, followed by why that doesn’t necessitate that God couldn’t create the universe just like it’s written even though it’s literary. Then I go into how it’s weird that the options are either thousands of years or 7 days, and how I think Augustine might have been on to something with an instantaneous creation. Then I usually just shrug my shoulders and say “I don’t know.”

You would think that eventually I’d just skip to the last part.

In his book, “The Lost World of Genesis One,” scholar John Walton keys in on the age of the earth debate:

“If the seven days refer to the seven days of cosmic temple inauguration, days that concern origins of functions not material, then the seven days of Genesis 1 as a whole have nothing to contribute to the discussion of the age of the earth… The point is not that the biblical text therefore supports an old earth, but simply that there is no biblical position on the age of the earth. If it were to turn out that the earth is young, so be it.”

By now, many of you have heard of the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. It’s certainly an interesting case, and political mouth pieces from both sides have been doing what they do best—vomiting up an impressive amount of useless words. Bi-partisan word-vomiting. It’s not that I don’t care about opinions and editorials and so forth. I do. I want, and need, to hear what others think. But it just gets frustrating hearing the same fallacious arguments over and over.

Thankfully, whenever I need a breath of fresh air, I can also look in at what one of my e-friends has to say. Thomas Turner, blogger at Everday Liturgy, is almost always that fresh air. Thomas writes:

“What this incident defines for me is not whether we are racist or not, whether police act stupidly or not, or whether arresting someone for disorderly conduct on their own property is ethical or constitutional. There is only one thing for certain in this mess, one problem that stands out above the quagmire: we don’t know who are neighbors are.”

The fact of the matter is that Henry’s next-door neighbor didn’t recognize who he was. Think about that for a minute. She didn’t know what her very neighbor looked like. This isn’t just against her. This is an indictment on both of them. Even more so, it’s an indictment against us all. Thom continues:

“Not knowing the person who lives across the street from you, that’s just sad. But that’s the state of affairs in all of America (not just the suburbs). We have become anti-neighbor. That’s just not a cultural fault. We are supposed to treat everyone as a neighbor. We as a people are failing as a culture to follow the golden rule on a daily basis in part because we are not mean, rude, belligerent, or nasty. It’s far worse. We are indifferent and apathetic. We are lukewarm neighbors, ones who cannot even stop to wave or chit chat.”

Though I’ve quoted quite a bit, I suggest going and reading the entire article: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

“God has chosen the agenda of the text, and we must be content with the wisdom of his choices. If we attempt to commandeer the text to address our issues, we distort it in the process.”

-John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate, pg. 21.

Brian, author of the awesome blog sunestauromai, has put up a pretty candid post on the link between preaching and eschatology (study of “last things”). He quotes from Eugene Peterson’s books Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness, where Peterson says that “Pastoral Work is Eschatological.” Brian tells us of his initial reaction:
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While looking at my blog’s stats for today, I noticed a hit on my currently reading page. I realized that I hadn’t updated the page in forever (so, to whoever went there, I apologize for lying to you about what I was currently reading), so I decided to update it. Currently, I’m reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck, along with a few commentaries on Mark for the Bible study I’m leading. After East of Eden, I’ll be reading John Walton’s The Lost World of Genesis One. I also added some of the books I’ll be reading for next semester, but that list isn’t quite complete yet.

A few days ago, I uploaded my review of N. T. Wright’s book Justification. Though I happily recommended the book, the overall tone of the review was critical… which even surprised me. The problem was simply this: I only disagreed with Wright in a few places, but those places formed the major argument of the book.

I wanted to write another post that hit on the things that I thought were good or right in the book, but I found that someone else has essentially said what I would have said, and said it better. Here are some notes from Kevin DeYoung’s pre-review:

Wright is right about a lot in this book. He is right to follow Calvin’s view of the law more than Luther’s. He is right to think that lawkeeping in Judaism was supposed to be a gracious response to God’s covenant mercy (“supposed to”, not “always was” in my opinion). He is right to see that the story of the Bible has God at the center and not us. He is right to see that Paul’s gospel is steeped in “single-plan-through-Israel-for-the-world” theology. He is right to think that not all his critics have taken the time to understand what he is saying (though Piper certainly has). In short, Wright is right more often than he is wrong. But I don’t think he is always right, nor is he always clear.

See the rest here: http://www.revkevindeyoung.com/2009/07/nt-wright-justification-gods-plan-and.html

I was very excited to find not one, but two new books in the mail today—courtesy of Adrianna Wright and IVP Academic! Thank you IVP!

The first book is The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate by John H. Walton. Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of editing a chapter on the doctrine of creation for Dr. Greg Allison’s unpublished Historical Theology book, and have a great interest in all things Genesis 1 and 2. I have been excited about Walton’s book ever since I saw that it was supposed to come out soon. Two of the blurbs on the back also come from two of my favorite scholars, Bruce Waltke and Tremper Longman III.

The second book is Ministry by the Book: New Testament Patterns for Pastoral Leadership by Derek Tidball. I was introduced to Tidball by my paster, Daniel Montgomery. Seeing as how Tidball has greatly influenced him, and by extension myself, and that I am both attending seminary and applying for Sojourn’s own Pastor’s School, I welcome all resources on ministry that I can find.

So again, thanks IVP Academic. I will be getting reviews of these books up as soon as I finish reading them!