Faith Seeking Understanding

Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson, Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus

Crossway, 2011, 213 pgs.

Summary: Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Thompson argue that most Christian parenting books and strategies tend to create moralistic Pharisees and angry rebels rather than Christians. The reason for this is our (meaning you, me, and our kid’s) tendency to trust in our own strength rather than God’s grace.

Instead of encouraging our children to rely on their own strength to please us and ultimately God, the authors suggest we speak candidly to them about God’s law and their inability to obey it from the heart and the need for God’s grace. They do this by considering parental guidance in five categories: management is teaching the basic rules of life (eat broccoli-don’t hit your brother) and outward conformity to God’s law; nurture (love them and show them how Christ loves them); train them (show them how Christ’s death resurrection answers the problem); correct them (in the context of Christ’s work); and remind them of God’s promises. All of this has to be done within a framework of gospel wisdom rather than moralism or guaranteed “biblical” principles.

B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles

The Banner of Truth Trust, 1972, 327 pgs.

Summary: A series of lectures on counterfeit miracles given in 1917 to 1918. The book is divided up into six chapters: the cessation of the charismata, patristic and mediaeval marvels, Roman Catholic miracles, Irvingite gifts (cf. review of The Life of Edward Irving), faith-healing, and mind cure.

Warfield’s basic argument is that with the passing of the apostles and those on whom the apostles laid their hands the charismata subsided in history. He believes that the purpose of the miraculous gifts was to confirm the truthfulness of the apostles’ gospel.  Once the apostolic message was written the the miracles ceased.

Or as Warfield notes with approval, “It is unreasonable to ask miracles, says John Calvin—or to find them—where there is no new gospel. By as much as the one gospel suffices for all lands and all peoples and all times, by so much does the miraculous attestation of that one single gospel suffice for all lands and all times, and no further miracles are to be expected in connection with it” (27).

D. A. Carson, The Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson

Crossway, 2008, 160 pgs, $15.99.

Summary: One of the most brilliant-evangelical theologians in the United States writes of the life and efforts of his father, Tom Carson. Tom Carson for about fifteen years (1948-1963) struggled to pastor a small English speaking Baptist church while simultaneously working as a missionary to the French speaking population of Quebec. He then became a civil servant, but remained in French speaking Quebec to continue serving as a lay pastor. After mandatory retirement from the civil service, he again returned to fulltime ministry until his wife’s battle with Alzheimer’s.

Tom Carson and the other pioneer Baptist missionaries to French speaking and Catholic Canada laid the groundwork for the revival of the 1970s. By God’s grace Pastor Carson was able to participate in those momentous events from the early work of the ‘40s to the late ‘80s. Pastor Carson’s godliness, sobriety and industry are exemplary, and his son does not hide his weakness, confusion, and sin. I would be greatly blessed to live, preach, and die as Tom Carson did.

Charles Williams, The Image of the City and Other Essays; War in Heaven

The Image of the City and Other Essays, Reprint: The Aporcyphile Press, 2007; Oxford University Press, 1958, 199 pgs.

War in Heaven, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982, 256 pgs.

Summary: The philosophical, theological, and poetic musings of a moderately brilliant poet who wrote histories, popular journal articles, fiction novels (War in Heaven), and gave lectures to the developing middle class on art and culture to pay the bills. Williams apparently wandered in and then out of genteel British occult (The Image, xxiii) practice and decided to stick with an eccentric but mostly orthodox Anglicanism.  He was a member of the Inklings.

As a poet his imagery is more powerful than his ability for the nuanced logic necessary for theological and philosophical reflection. The reader gets the feeling that the argument is more the mental aroma, or perhaps the colors in the shades of the word pictures. Williams might be right in the end, but the difference between the smell of burnt banana peels and dirty socks is too fine a distinction for most readers to live by or to organize a church around.

Michael P. V. Barrett, Beginning at Moses: A Guide to Finding Christ in the Old Testament

Ambassador Internal, Greenville, 2001.

Summary: A solid, scholarly, and conservative introduction to interpreting the Old Testament from a Christocentric perspective:

From Final Thoughts: “My contention is that there is a relevant message in the Old Testament that is discernible and discoverable by sound and sensible methods of interpretation that consider the full, not just the surface, meaning of the text. Although not in every line and perhaps not on every page, the message of Christ overshadows the entire Old Testament. Finding Christ is the key that both unlocks and locks in the message of the whole Word of God. Jesus Christ is God’s final, perfect, incomparable Word. In the final analysis, it is safe to say that Jesus is God’s only Word for man” (327).

Richard Bauckham, The Bible in Politics: How to Read the Bible Politically

Louisville, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989.

Summary: A thoughtful establishment of a hermeneutical process for developing biblical application of the Bible to modern politics and ethics.

The process looks like this:

  1. Identify what the text meant to the initial audience.
  2. Determine the differences between the initial audience and believers today.
  3. Develop universal principles from the text.
  4. Correlate the principle with New Testament teaching.
  5. Apply the modified universal principle to life today.

(The process summary is drawn from Tidball, The Message of Leviticus, 29).

Arnold Dallimore, The Life of Edward Irving: The Fore-Runner of the Charismatic Movement

Edinburgh, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1983.

Summary: The book records and explains the rise of speaking in tongues, prophecy, and the continuation of the apostolic office under the ministry of Edward Irving (1792-1834). Irving unintentionally established the framework of both Dispensationalism and the Charismatic Movement by being a catalysis for the popularization of a variety of unique views on the end times and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Irving translated “The Coming of Christ in Glory and Majesty” by the Jesuit Lacunza and adopted his view of the end times whereby Christ’s work with the biological seed of Abraham is different than his work with the Gentile Church. Further, he clearly establishes the Charismatic explanations for inaccurate prophecy, the fact that tongues speaking is not a known language, and the failure of faith healers.

Mark A. Yarhouse, Homosexuality and the Christian: A Guide for Parents, Pastors, and Friends

Bethany House, 2010.

Summary: Yarhouse explicitly rejects homosexual activity as sin while finding many aspects of homosexual practice social constructions. He divides the homosexual experience into three tiers: same-sex attraction, homosexual orientation (long-term same-sex attraction accepted as a personal norm), gay identity (a cultural construction of self and group identification).  He argues that while “same sex attraction” can be independent of behavior, orientation and gay identity requires cognitive acquiescence and maintenance.

He challenges both the church and those who would like to obey the Bible yet who experience same sex attraction to focus on finding orientation and identity in Jesus Christ. This is especially the case, because the cause or causes of same sex attraction are not clear: nature and nurture both appear to play a role. Since individuals give different significance to internal (nature) and external (nurture) stimuli and events, a single cause or set of causes for same sex attraction may never be found.

Page 5 of 5