Phil Gons

Bible & Tech

Driscoll and Piper on Love and God’s Commands

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I follow Mark Driscoll on Twitter and just watched a little 4:27 video that he tweeted about: “Song of Solomon Q&A 3.” I’ve embedded it below.

It contains some solid practical advice for troubled marriages. On the whole, it’s good stuff.

Two items caught my attention—particularly because of how they seem to be at odds with things John Piper teaches:

  1. “If [love is] commanded, that means it’s not a feeling.”
  2. “God couldn’t command you to do something that was impossible for you to do.”

Here’s a transcript of the relevant portion with the key parts in bold:

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The Passive Voice Should Be Avoided, Right?

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The Elements of StyleLike most of you who have taken classes with teachers who provided grammatical and stylistic critiques of your papers, I was told to avoid the passive voice as much as possible. Yet I was never really completely convinced of the notion. The Greek New Testament is full of passives, I rebutted, and a grammatical active may be a semantic passive (yet these, strangely, never got marked as improper). I just never felt like the case against passives was convincing. It was more of an unquestionable rule of proper writing style.

But not everyone is afraid to question this prevailing notion. I just read a scathing (understatement!) review of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style that addresses the issue of passives, among other things. It was written by Geoffrey K. Pullum, who is the head of linguistics and English language at the University of Edinburgh.

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OpenLibrary.org: “Every Book Ever Published”

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I knew that would get your attention.

Internet Archive, a site I use regularly for researching public domain books, just announced their newest project: OpenLibrary.org. Here’s the site’s description:

One web page for every book ever published. It’s a lofty, but achievable, goal.

To build it, we need hundreds of millions of book records, a brand new database infrastructure for handling huge amounts of dynamic information, a wiki interface, multi-language support, and people who are willing to contribute their time, effort, and book data.

To date, we have gathered about 30 million records (20 million are available through the site now), and more are on the way. We have built the database infrastructure and the wiki interface, and you can search millions of book records, narrow results by facet, and search across the full text of 1 million scanned books.

According to the homepage, the current numbers are 22,845,290 book entries and 1,064,822 books with full text.

[Read more…] about OpenLibrary.org: “Every Book Ever Published”

Gaffin on Union with Christ

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WTSBooks points out via Twitter a 5-part series (plus 2 Q&A sessions) by Richard B. Gaffin Jr. on “The Mystery of Union with Christ.” Gaffin delivered these messages at Matthews Orthodox Presbyterian in March of 2005. I’ve downloaded them and listened to part of the first one. It looks to be a very good series. They are available as free downloads courtesy of SermonAudio.com.

  1. The Mystery of Union with Christ—Part 1
  2. The Mystery of Union with Christ—Part 2
  3. The Mystery of Union with Christ—Part 3
  4. The Mystery of Union with Christ—Part 4
  5. The Mystery of Union with Christ—Part 5
  6. The Mystery of Union with Christ—Q & A, Part 1
  7. The Mystery of Union with Christ—Q & A, Part 2

[Read more…] about Gaffin on Union with Christ

Resources on the Doctrine of Union with Christ

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A pastor friend of mine sent out an email to a few friends last week asking for recommended resources on the doctrine of our union with Christ. I’ve done some reading and studying on the subject in the past, so I pulled together a bibliography of articles, books, etc.

I haven’t read everything on my list, but of the ones I’ve read, here are some of my top picks:

  1. Michael P. V. Barrett, “Union with Christ: The Security of the Gospel,” in Complete in Him: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Gospel (Greenville, SC: Ambassador-Emerald, 2000), 93–118. [Amazon]
  2. Bruce A. Demarest, “The Doctrine of Union with Christ,” in The Cross and Salvation: The Doctrine of Salvation, Foundations of Evangelical Theology, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton: Crossway, 1997), 313–44. [Amazon | Google Books | Logos]
  3. Wayne A. Grudem, “Union with Christ,” in Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 840–50. [Amazon | Google Books | Logos]
  4. Michael Horton, “Union with Christ,” in Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation, ed. Michael Horton (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 107–15. [Amazon]
  5. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Union with Christ,” in God the Holy Spirit, vol 2. of Great Doctrines of the Bible (Wheaton: Crossway, 1997), 106–16. [Amazon | Logos]
  6. John Murray, “Union with Christ,” in Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 161–73. [Amazon | Google Books]
  7. Robert L. Reymond, “Union with Christ,” in A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 2nd ed. (Nashville: Nelson, 1998), 736–39. [Amazon | Logos]

Go have a look at the new page, and feel free to add recommendations of resources that you’ve found helpful in the comments either on this post or on that page.

See also my review of Demarest’s The Cross and Salvation. I wrote it in seminary several years ago, but it may still be of some benefit. :)

Pettegrew on the Cessation of (All of) the Spiritual Gifts

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The New Covenant Ministry of the Holy SpiritI had a discussion with a friend over dinner a few days ago, and we were talking about books on the Holy Spirit that we liked. We talked about Sinclair Ferguson’s The Holy Spirit, and then Larry Pettegrew’s The New Covenant Ministry of the Holy Spirit came up. I commented on Pettegrew’s unique view that all of the gifts—not just miraculous and revelatory ones—were temporary and had passed with the time of the apostles. My friend responded with surprise, thinking I was talking about someone else or just mistaken. So when I got home that evening, I pulled out Pettegrew’s book and found what seems to me to be evidence in favor of my reading of Pettegrew. (If memory serves me correctly, my Pneumatology professor, Gary Reimers, is actually the one that tipped me off to Pettegrew’s view.) I sent some key quotes on to him, and, to my surprise, he still wasn’t convinced. So I’ll let you decide.

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Bill Clinton: “I’m too much of a Calvinist.”

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Bill ClintonI saw this video this morning and just have to pass it along.

[Edit: The video is no longer available.]

Here’s a transcript of the short exchange:

John Roberts: US News & World Report this week commissioned a poll that surveyed a bunch of women in American asking what role you should take on with your wife as Secretary of State. Thirty-seven percent, the greatest number of women, said, “House husband.” We’re wondering what you think about that.

Bill Clinton: I—well, you know, it’s funny. I told her when she left that I—that I wish now that I was an ordinary citizen, because I wish I could go with her and be there when she comes home at night and do for her what she did for me when I was President. But it’s not in the cards. I’m—we’re doing the best we can to work through this and do the right thing.

John Roberts: Would you ever be comfortable being a house husband?

Bill Clinton: No. I have to go to work. I’m—I’m too much of a Calvinist. If I don’t work every day, I get nervous.

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20 Tracks of Classical Guitar for $2.99

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Amazon is currently offering Guitar Sampler, a 20-track album of classical guitar music, for only $2.99—the price of just three individual tracks in the album. I downloaded it last night and have been really enjoying it. If you like classical guitar, you’ll most likely enjoy this album. You can listen to samples of all 20 tracks to find out.

HT: Steve McCoy via Aaron Sauer