It seems that Mennonites who use only steel-wheeled farm equipment are in trouble in Mitchell County, Iowa. (article here)

The county is seeking to prohibit their moving their steel-wheeled equipment on the roads due to the damage done by them.

The problem is, however, the Mennonite’s use of steel wheels is (though not Biblical) an issue directly related to the practice of their faith.

I believe I foresee a serious problem should the county continue as they are going.  Either they will lose many of their citizens due to the Mennonites moving, or they will be seriously hurt in court by being found to have infringed upon the First Amendment rights of some of their citizens.

Let’s hope they move toward mediation and work it out.

Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision by N. T. Wright

Whew! What a book! One goes up and then down while reading this book. There’s much to be said about Justification that simply cannot be said in a book review. It would give away too much.
Let it simply be said that the New Perspective on Paul is under fire. John Piper fired a huge round when he wrote Counted Righteous in Christ and The Future of Justification. Piper is no light-weight expositor, but should be taken seriously. Wright has done so in many ways. This is Wright’s response.
First of all, I shall mention the good. There is much good in this book. Wright has much knowledge and experience as an exegete. This is obvious as one reads Justification. Wright also seeks to be true to the Scripture. Even those who disagree with him must admit the fact of Wright’s seriousness when he approaches God’s Word.
What impresses me the most is the fact that behind the disagreement, Piper and Wright have two huge things in common. They both believe that God is working in this world to manifest His glory. They also both believe in the unity of the Bible.
It is the commitment to the unity of the Bible that most impresses me about Wright and Justification. He simply seeks to relate everything. Indeed, everything in the Bible is related. I both applaud and admire Wright on this. He has worked hard to harmonize the various texts that are relevant to the discussion of justification.
The not so good: Wright is not always as charitable to those with whom he disagrees as one should be. His opening comparison between Old Perspective believers and geocentrists was not a wise move at all. It could serve to alienate many whom he desires to reach.
Wright also at times does not seem to quite get the point of Piper. While he states that Piper misses his points (and I think that is indeed possible), he misses Piper’s points, too.
In the end, I must say that I both labored over and enjoyed Justification. It’s simply an amazing work.
What saddens me the most is that Piper and Wright both could probably sit down together and work through much of this issue. Piper is right that imputed righteousness cannot be diminished. Wright is correct in seeking to bring the writings of Paul into their covenantal perspective. On this I now have much to consider.
Thanks to Adrianna Wright of IVP for this review copy.

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Many years ago one of the fundamentals of the faith that the historic fundamentalists contended for was that Christ truly performed miracles.

Sometime in the future I shall deal with this issue more in depth, the Lord willing.  At this point I would simply like to point out a few things  that should be considered about miracles in general.

1.  Jesus Himself spoke of the miracles that He did as being real.  (Jn 10:37,38;14:11-13) To deny miracles is to deny the words of Jesus.  One must deny the truthfulness of Jesus’ statement.  Of course, one could always enter into the higher critical mode and declare that those were words attributed to Jesus and not something He truly spoke.  When we do that, we open up even another can of worms.   The problem simply grows larger the harder one works to deny the miraculous.

2.  To deny the miraculous is to deny much of the history of the book of Acts as well as the Gospels and even the teaching of some of the Pauline epistles.  To top it off, one would also have to deny much of the content of the book of Revelation and of the Old Testament, too.

3.  Of course, one would also have much to deny about the nature of God if they reject the supernatural.  What kind of god is it that cannot/does not perform miracles?  What kind of god is not supernatural?

4.  Finally, one would have to be God to truly be able to state conclusively that miracles do not happen.  They would have to be both omnipresent and omniscient to ever be able to truly make that statement.  All of our experience deals with our short life.  God is timeless and is not limited by time and space constraints.  He knows all things, too.  He alone is omniscient and omnipresent.  We will never have enough knowledge to declare conclusively that miracles do not happen, or that they have never happened.

This leaves us with the necessity (if we are to be intellectually honest) of at least allowing for the possibility of miracles.

Just musing…

GE 35:10 God says Jacob is to be called Jacob no longer; henceforth his name is Israel.
GE 46:2 At a later time, God himself uses the name Jacob.

Is this truly inconsistent?  Not at all.

The reality is that from that day forward Jacob was primarily called Israel.    The issue was not that he would NEVER AGAIN be called Jacob, but that he would primarily be called Israel.

It is the same as a man growing up being called Francis and deciding that he no longer will be called Francis, but will be called Frank.  He will still be called Francis by many people who knew him as a child.  He will, however, primarily be called Frank by those who associate with him frequently, because they choose to honor his choice.

Crossway’s ESV Study Bible is the subject of our review this week.

In this review we shall look at the ESV Study Bible and consider both the Bible text and some of its features.

First we shall briefly look at the translation.

The ESV is an essentially literal (el) translation. This means that it seeks to translate the Bible text from the original languages word for word. The English translation seeks to accurately translate each word so as to be faithful to the writings of the original penmen.

As an essentially literal translation the ESV follows the tradition of the King James Version. It seeks to preserve both the faithfulness to the original text as well as the rhythm and beauty that has characterized essentially literal translations. To be honest, not all el translations have given a smooth reading text. The ESV does a good job of keeping a relatively smooth read.

The ESV also reminds me of the KJV. This is a good thing, because the KJV set a standard for beauty, structure and rhythm. Bible translators are wise to keep the philosophy of the KJV translators in mind. The ESV has done this in many ways.

Having read in the ESV a good bit over the last several months I have found it to be unfamiliar in the sense that it is not exactly the same as the KJV. On the other hand, it is very familiar in that it has a similar “feel” to it. When one reads it they know that they are reading the Bible and not some neighborhood kids paraphrase. It has much majesty of tone and style. It is also easy to read.

I foresee the ESV Study Bible being a great tool to help many people.

The ESV Study Bible that I received was quite good in quality. It was in a nice box, quite unlike most Bible boxes. This box seemed to be made for the purpose of storage as well as shipping and stocking in stores. The Bible I received was one of the Tru-Tone bindings. The cover was nicely done and stitched at most of the pressure points so that the Bible would stay together longer than most Bibles. That is an impressive thing to me, and I am usually poorly impressed by the binding of most Bibles.

Another impressive thing is the introductory material. Whether one opens the Bible to read the introduction to the Old Testament, or the introduction to a particular book of the Bible, this material is great. It is quite comprehensive, covering many of the major controversies surrounding the matter at hand, treating them fairly, and then introducing the material by giving us pertinent background information as well as literary information concerning what one will read soon. This is done in a scholarly, but easy to read manner.

Again, to this point I am well impressed with the ESV Study Bible.

In closing my review I want to consider two positives and one negative.

First the positive.

1. Balance. One of the things that stirs up much emotion is the subject of eschatology. The ESV Study Bible is balanced in this area. As I looked through the book of Revelation, its introduction, and various study notes I found the ESV to be a sort of non-partisan Bible. It’s not that the notes don’t take a certain position, but mostly the notes simply report and lets the reader decide what they should believe about the matter. Balance of this sort is good, because the major eschatological views are within the realm of orthodoxy. Instead of feeding the flames of controversy the notes allow a fair view of the issues before the reader and leave it at that.

2. Conviction. The doctrinal studies in the back of the Bible are very impressive. Though not a systematic theology, these doctrinal studies will be helpful to the reader who longs to learn more of the foundations of the Christian faith. The balance here is that the fundamental truths of Scripture are upheld. I must applaud those who wrote these notes.

Finally, the negative.

I wish there were a few more notes about textual issues. There are some textual issues that are mentioned, but I noticed that the Johannine Comma was simply omitted without reference to any textual data for or against it. As it is one of the most contested passages I was disappointed with that particular omission.

In the end I must give the ESV Study Bible five stars and thank God and Crossway for this gift to the church.

(This copy of the ESV Study Bible provided for review by Crossway Publishers.)

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