Torrey Gazette is the combined work of everyday Christians blogging on books, family, art, and theology. So pull up a seat and join us. Family Table rules apply. Shouting is totally acceptable.
All in Art
Thankfully, Simonetta Carr and Reformation Heritage Books are providing introductory level biographies that are engaging. The latest in their “Christian Biographies For Young Readers” series, Jonathan Edwards focuses on the theological and pastoral giant of the 18th century.
Our daughter absolutely loved the book and our reading it during family worship. The Christmas Story for Children is an excellent little book for the advent season.
Fans of the KJV will be hard pressed to find a more stylish and efficient edition. Individuals seeking a more literal translation will thoroughly enjoy the KJV Skinii Bible as well.
It's important to understand that the scriptures (specifically the New Testament in this sense) were written in space & time to a certain people in space and time. None of this means that what was written then is no longer applicable to the modern reader, rather, Wright contests that in order to obtain a modern application from the text would depend on obtaining the ancient application. Our approach should not be to divorce the scriptures from the place and time they were written in order to acquire their "higher meaning." Instead we should look to understand exactly what scripture was addressing so that we may see how it does (and does not) apply to us today.
Jesus, the Temple and the Coming Son of Man is a focused effort to re-acquaint readers of the Scriptures with the meaning of Christ as recorded by Mark. Stein provides a scholarly, yet condensed, approach that laymen and pastors will find extremely valuable.
Future of Israel is simply a repackaging of old evangelical theology for a generation that has already become disenchanted with these roots. Ryrie’s Dispensationalism Today or scholarly works by Dr. Bock, Dr. Saucy or Dr. Blasing would better serve individual interested in studying the Biblical pro-Israel arguments.
In conclusion, Alistair Stewart does a magnificent job of laying out his case in The Original Bishops. This is a highly technical work and much of it was well past my knowledge or ability to render scholarly judgment.
The beauty of the gospel is that it is the ultimate unveiling. The reality of Jesus pulls back the veil that has hidden the ugliness of humanity's heart. When we are presented with the god-man Jesus Christ we have but two options: 1) the pridefully hang on to the veils that cover our ugliness or 2) allow the spirit of grace to remove the veil, expose our shame, yet cover us and transform us into the beauty of Christ.
Until infants entered the picture, my experience of sleep was one of quickly falling into it, staying there soundly, and waking each morning refreshed. Nursing an infant every two hours will create new sleep and prayer patterns. As Adrian Reynolds discusses in his book, And So To Bed…A Biblical View of Sleep (henceforth “To Bed”), not only is sleep spiritual, it speaks of spiritual realities and can be both hindered/enhanced by spiritual conditions.
My hope is that this blog can encourage its readers to be of a similar type as those who dwelt at St. Anne's Manor in That Hideous Strength: faithfully awaiting the descent of the gods.
“Art can be redemptive because of its eyes to see the sorrow of the world and its ears
The Home Team closes strongly, reminding families that the goal of parenting is “to raise children who are independently dependent on Christ” (133). Although covenant orientated families, and churches, will be appreciative of Archer’s insight, they will ultimately be unsatisfied.
“The necessity of children for communal survival in the ancient world stand in contrast with the compulsory restriction of children’s value to the emotional realm that has come to dominate modern Western culture.” (154)
Perhaps some will even "discover that pipe smoking, for all intents and purposes, is a form of prayer" (17).
"Deep Comedy," according to Leithart, is something that can only be achieved in and through the Christian worldview. What is "deep comedy?" it is the world that the Bible says that we inhabit. The Bible, through the communication of the Trinitarian God, teaches that creation (the world we inhabit) need not be a perpetually decaying world.
Far from disparaging the commands of God by ignoring them (like many reformed/pietists) or calling people to earn their salvation through adherence to a moral code (like Moral Therapeutic Deists), Smith shows that the purpose of the law is to subvert any claim on autonomy and direct the community of the church into a lifestyle that is aimed at the way the world is truly suppose to be; aimed at the Kingdom.
Starting Missional Churches is a pressing and convicting volume on the future of the church and its planting procedures.
The illustrations are spectacular. With 32 pages of simple and short sentences, the illustrations stand out and effectually drive the story for the child reader.
When you think about the fact that bats are blind and use sonar to navigate the night skies looking for bugs; or the fact that caterpillars hang from tomato plants in your back yard for a few weeks in order to turn in to butterflies; or the fact that the ring I gave my wife when I asked her to marry me was at one point a lump of black coal; these all seem like stories you could tell a kid before they go to sleep at night. Wilson gets at the fact that they are all stories; God's stories for us.
In our Adamic nature we are prone to chafe under our limits (for this was how Satan tempted our parents in the garden: "You will be like God"), however, when we rest in the sovereignty of God we find that we can not only accept our role as limited creatures but actually rejoice therein!
