This Made Me Laugh

Revenge of the Organist! Read the whole thing here.

Kingdom Come - On Sale Now

Westminster Books has just published Sam Storm's new book, which may prove to be the definitive work on Amillenialism. Until 5/22 Westminster Bookstore is offering the hardcover edition of Kingdom Come: The Amillenial Alternative for only $15.

View the PDF

Publisher's Description
The second coming of Christ is a matter of sharp disagreement amongst Christians. Many hold to premillennialism: that Christ's return will be followed by 1,000 years before the final judgement, a belief popularised in the popular Left Behind novels. However, premillennialism is not the only option for Christians. In this important new book, Sam Storms provides a biblical rationale for amillennialism; the belief that 1,000 years mentioned in the book of Revelation is symbolic with the emphasis being the King and his Kingdom.

About the Author
Sam Storms is the Lead Pastor for Preaching and Vision at Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and the President of Enjoying God Ministries (www.samstorms.com). He has authored or edited 22 books and has published numerous journal articles and book reviews. He is a graduate of The University of Oklahoma (BA), Dallas Theological Seminary (ThM), and The University of Texas at Dallas (PhD). He and his wife Ann have been married for 41 years and are the parents of two grown daughters and have four grandchildren.

“This is a remarkable book which will surely become the standard bearer for Amillennialism for years to come. Storms is particularly adept (and gracious) at critiquing premillennial positions, especially dispensationalism. His interaction with postmillennialism and preterism is equally intelligent and insightful. This is a book I will return to many times in my personal study and in pastoral ministry. Storms has given us a model for accessible, relevant, warm-hearted scholarship in service of the church.”
- Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor, University Reformed Church, East Lansing, Michigan

“If Christians in the past were guilty of obsessing too much over the end times, evangelicals today may face the opposite problem of caring too little. The writings of Sam Storms are exactly what we need: faithful theology and careful exegesis served with a pastoral spirit and reverent worship. In these pages you will find Dr. Storms’ mature reflections on the end times, honed over decades in the classroom and in the church. There is something in here to challenge and to encourage all of us, no matter our persuasion. I pray this book will help others in the same way it has helped me.”
—Justin Taylor, author and blogger, Between Two Worlds

“Evangelicals continue to be divided over eschatology, and such divisions will likely continue until the eschaton. For some, premillennialism is virtually equivalent to orthodoxy. Sam Storms challenges such a premise with a vigorous defense of amillennialism. Storms marshals exegetical and theological arguments in defense of his view in this wide-ranging work. Even those who remain unconvinced will need to reckon with the powerful case made for an amillennial reading. The author calls us afresh to be Bereans who are summoned to search the scriptures to see if these things are so.”
—Thomas R. Schreiner, James Buchanan Harrison Professor of New Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY

“Sam Storms’ Kingdom Come is a remarkably comprehensive and informative study of eschatology from a Reformed perspective. Not only does he persuasively argue the amillennial position but he provides a clear and charitable understanding of the alternatives. On topic after topic, I marveled at Storms’ sound handling and lucid teaching of difficult material. Kingdom Come is extraordinarily helpful to the student of eschatology and no Reformed library will be complete without this book.”
—Richard D. Phillips, Senior Minister, Second Presbyterian Church, Greenville, SC

“Sam Storms’ Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative is the most helpful book on the various millennial views I have seen since W. J. Grier’s The Momentous Event. His work is marked by careful exegesis of pertinent texts, and ranges widely and deeply in all of the relevant Scriptural passages deal- ing with the end of the age. While no one book is universal in its range, this one comes close to it! Storms’ work is lucid and fair; he certainly works with a point of view (amillennialism), but is scrupulous in not misrepresenting the views he critiques, and is charitable in spirit throughout his substantial volume. While he surveys in detail the three major views of the millennium (in a balanced way, in my opinion), probably the majority of his attention is directed to premillennial dispensationalism (so dominant in American Evangelicalism). He marshals many a passage to show why it is really not possible to hold this view, if one takes seriously the majority of the Scriptural texts involved (as for instance, the belief in the premillennial rapture). I do think he is humble before the teaching of the Scriptures, and wishes for the clear teaching written Word to be taken as it stands. His interpretation of the seventy weeks of Daniel chapter 9 is a model of clear, exegetical theology, as is his understanding of what is now called ‘replacement theology. His discussion of the modern state of Israel is, I think, judicious and helpful. One does not have to agree with everything he says on the end of time to be able heartily to recommend this excellent book. I plan to use it in my teaching, and will be glad to have it available for the next time I teach Eschatology.”
—Douglas F. Kelly, Richard Jordan Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte, NC

Book Details

592 Pages
Publisher: Christian Focus
Publication Date: May 2013
ISBN 10: 1781911320
ISBN 13: 9781781911327

Saudi Arabia to Punish Men for Aiding Woman

In Saudi Arabia it is a crime to proselytize - and a crime to convert from Islam. Two men who helped convert a woman to Christianity and helped her flee the country to seek asylum in Sweden have been sentenced under Saudi Arabia's draconian Sharia Law. A Lebanese man was sentenced to six years in prison and 300 lashes, while his Saudi colleague was sentenced to two years and 200 lashes. Pray for our brothers and sisters who suffer such injustices to practice their faith; and pray for these men who have given so much to see one woman set free.

Read the Reuters article here.

Is There a Lutheran Hermeneutics?

Way back in 1966, Edward H. Schroeder wrote an article on Luther's hermeneutic and what it means for understanding Scripture and the confessions.

Is there a distinctive Lutheran interpretation of the Scriptures? In his recent book The Holy Spirit and Modern Thought, Lindsay Dewar (an Anglican) says the answer is Yes. At least in Luther himself, says he, there is a distinctive and unique hermeneutics at work - and it is a bad one....It is my contention that Canon Dewar is right in his insight into Luther's "one-sided" interpretation of the Scriptures, but I think the one-sidedness is commendable.

Read the whole article (PDF) here. 

From The Lively Function of the Gospel, in The Caemmerer Festschrift, St. Louis, Concordia Publishing House, 1966, pp. 81-97. Later Published in The Promising Tradition: A Reader in Law-Gospel Reconstructionist Theology, ed. by Edward H. Schroeder, St. Louis, Missouri, 1973.

In Memorium

We pause to remember Dallas Willard, who passed away yesterday at the age of 77. May God rest his soul. He will be missed.

Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus

Phil Zuckerman has an interesting post over at HufPo on the contradictions between typical evangelical values and the values Jesus taught and espoused. The impact of the piece is necessarily based on reductions - anyone who blogs knows it is difficult to nuance the written word in a few pages - but it still contains a lot to chew on:

Evangelicals don't exactly hate Jesus -- as we've provocatively asserted in the title of this piece. They do love him dearly. But not because of what he tried to teach humanity. Rather, Evangelicals love Jesus for what he does for them. Through his magical grace, and by shedding his precious blood, Jesus saves Evangelicals from everlasting torture in hell, and guarantees them a premium, luxury villa in heaven. For this, and this only, they love him. They can't stop thanking him. And yet, as for Jesus himself -- his core values of peace, his core teachings of social justice, his core commandments of goodwill -- most Evangelicals seem to have nothing but disdain.

Now, one can easily imagine this devolving into a conversation about the gospel versus the social gospel, so let's set something straight. Jesus came to save sinners. Embracing Jesus' ethic is probably a good thing, but that neither makes one a Christian nor saves from hell (and yes, some of us do believe in grace, "magical" or otherwise, as well as eternal damnation). But Zuckerman is putting his finger on something important here - a spiritualized "health, wealth, and prosperity" approach to Christianity. What can I get out of God?

But Jesus said clearly, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." And he even describes people who are sent into damnation having done many marvelous works in His name but having failed to live out Jesus' ethic. We could discuss the polemical nature of the evangelists' writings here, but it should be sufficient to say that Zuckerman has a point. Read the whole thing, here.

You Can't Imanentize the Eschaton

An interesting piece by Matt Lewis. It has the feel of a drive-by philosophy shooting, just throwing out big words to make the reader think there is more substance than a one page article can provide. But it is an interesting philosophical/theological approach to politics that has a bit of a catholic feel to it. Read it here.

Metal Monday : Slither

When you seek me you destroy me
Rape my mind and smell the poppies
Born and bloodied every single time

Always keep me under finger
That's the spot where you might linger
But I see some type of pleasure in my mind

Yeah, here comes the water
It comes to wash away the sins of you and I
This time you see
Like holy water
It only burns you faster than you'll ever dry
This time with me

This is a song about death, rebirth, and forgetting sin. It is also a song about drugs ("rape my mind and smell the poppies"). In the sad, small world of Velvet Revolver, the only way to wash one's sins away is to push heroin into the veins. The drugs burn away reality, replacing the heavy weight of sin with a vague, masochistic pleasure. The song also references the inevitability of addiction ("it only burns you faster than you'll ever dry"). The song has an oddly sacramental perspective that seems to intuitively grasp the way that ordinary, every day created things can be means of grace - but in VR's song, they are instead means of damnation. This song is a fascinating look at drug use and the way in which some use it to dull the pain of their sin. But thanks be to God, we don't need drugs to dull our guilt! Christ has born our sins in his own body on the tree. Our sins are not blurred in the fiery waters of heroin, but are washed away in the waters of baptism. Praise to you, O Christ †