Filter by date added:

Filter by author:

THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF MARTIN LUTHER'S THEOLOGY, edited by Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and L’ubomir Batka

Reviewed by David Luy   Summary The study of Martin Luther’s theology poses a considerable set of challenges for the beginner and specialist alike. The sheer vastness of Luther’s literary production (in excess of 120 volumes in the critical edition…

STUDIES IN THE PAULINE EPISTLES: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF DOUGLAS J. MOO, edited by Matthew S. Harmon and Jay E. Smith

Reviewed by Kevin McFadden This Festschrift for Doug Moo is a delightful collection of sixteen short essays by evangelical scholars on different aspects of Paul’s letters and theology. It opens with a brief biography of Moo written by his former student Dane Ortlund,…

GOD'S EQUAL: WHAT CAN WE KNOW ABOUT JESUS' SELF-UNDERSTANDING IN THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS? by Sigurd Grindheim

Reviewed by Fred G. Zaspel   Who did Jesus think he was? That’s the subject of Sigurd Grindheim’s God’s Equal: What Can We Know about Jesus’ Self-Understanding? His contention, as the title states, is that Jesus’ own words reflect a…

A COMPLETE HANDBOOK OF LITERARY FORMS IN THE BIBLE, by Leland Ryken

Reviewed by Frederic Clarke Putnam In the past four decades, Professor Leland Ryken (Wheaton College) has offered a number of works that demonstrate the contribution of literary studies to reading and understanding the Bible. Literary Forms in the Bible: A…

VIRGIN NATION: SEXUAL PURITY AND AMERICAN ADOLESCENCE, by Sara Moslener

Reviewed by Aimee Byrd I have two teenage daughters. Two! So purity is definitely a Christian value that my husband and I want to guard, promote, and teach on a continual basis. And yet between technology advancing further than we…

GOD'S KINGDOM THROUGH GOD'S COVENANTS: A CONCISE BIBLICAL THEOLOGY, by Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum

Reviewed by Fred G. Zaspel   The thesis that biblical revelation hinges on a succession of historical covenants is not new, but just how that successive revelation is to be understood and how those covenants relate to each other, of…

SIMPLY GOD: RECOVERING THE CLASSICAL TRINITY, by Peter Sanlon

Reviewed by Bradley Green Who is God and how do we speak of Him? Peter Sanlon has written what is essentially an introduction to classical Christian theism. He notes that his goal in the book is “to interpret classical Augustinian…

THE BAPTIST STORY: FROM ENGLISH SECT TO GLOBAL MOVEMENT, by Anthony L. Chute, Nathan A. Finn, and Michael A. G. Haykin

Reviewed by Jason Duesing If I could, I would love to find and sit with the 21st century Baptist equivalent of the Inklings. Regularly meeting with gifted colleagues at a local coffee shop (this is the Baptist version of course)…

GENESIS: HISTORY, FICTION, OR NEITHER? THREE VIEWS ON THE BIBLE'S EARLIEST CHAPTERS, by James Hoffmeier, Gordon Wenham, and Kenton Sparks

Reviewed by Steve Modugno The Zondervan Counterpoints series offers readers a valuable resource for evaluating difficult passages and subjects. The strength of the series is that each position is argued by a scholar who is committed to it. This avoids…

DIGNITY AND DESTINY: HUMANITY IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, by John Kilner

Reviewed by Daniel J. Hurst Misconceptions about what it truly means to be created in the imago Dei, or image of God, abound. Though this doctrine is a central tenet of Judeo-Christian theology, it is pierced with gross misinterpretations and…

POWER AND PURPOSE: PAUL RAMSEY AND CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN POLITICAL THEOLOGY, by Adam Hollowell

Reviewed by Jacob Shatzer Adam Edward Hollowell serves as adjunct professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and director of student ministry at Duke University Chapel. This book is a revision of Hollowell’s doctoral dissertation, completed…

THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: AN INTRODUCTION TO BIBLIA HEBRAICA, THIRD EDITION, by Ernst Wurthwein and A. A. Fischer

Reviewed by Eric Tully Sound biblical exegesis requires that we know something about many different things: the historical and literary contexts of the passage, the genre, the structure, and the significance of certain details. Before we consider those issues, however,…

THE AUTHORITY OF THE GOSPEL: EXPLORATIONS IN MORAL AND POLITICAL THEOLOGY IN HONOR OF OLIVER O'DONOVAN, eds. Robert Song and Brent Waters

Reviewed by Jacob Shatzer Oliver O’Donovan has rightly earned a reputation as “one of the pre-eminent Protestant Christian ethicists of the present time” (xi). His Resurrection and Moral Order, Desire of the Nations, and Ways of Judgment demonstrate his significance,…

FINDING AND SEEKING: ETHICS AS THEOLOGY VOLUME 2, by Oliver O'Donovan

Reviewed by Jacob Shatzer In this second volume of his “Ethics as Theology” series, Oliver O’Donovan seeks “to follow moral thought from self-awareness to decision through the sequence of virtues from faith to hope” (ix). While it seems simple at…

FROM CREATION TO NEW CREATION: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF G. K. BEALE, edited by Daniel Gurtner and Benjamin Gladd

Reviewed by Samuel Emadi My introduction to academic biblical theology came through reading G. K. Beale’s The Temple and the Church’s Mission. A prospective seminarian at the time, I was overwhelmed with Beale’s attention to textual detail, exegetical ability in…

THE PRESENCE OF GOD: ITS PLACE IN THE STORYLINE OF SCRIPTURE AND THE STORY OF OUR LIVES, by J. Ryan Lister

Reviewed by Jonny Atkinson At times within the discipline of Biblical Theology people can get enticed (and distracted?) by subtle and tenuous thematic links and connections throughout Scripture that have no real practical pay-off. Not so with J. Ryan Lister’s…