Musings of a Snickerdoodle

Did I like this book? Yes and no, but inclining more towards the latter.  The Apostle of the Last Days is an argument for Paul's life, letters and theology being eschatologically focused/united and that the troubles in the Churches Paul communicated with were because of faulty eschatologies.  Pate goes through the letters written by Paul and explains the Roman Eschatology/Roman Imperial Cult, non-Christian Jewish Eschatology and professing Christian faulty eschatology.  He then explains Paul's correction of them.  Did I like this book? Yes and no, but inclining more towards the latter. The Apostle of the Last Days is an argument for Paul's life, letters and theology being eschatologically focused/united and that the troubles in the Churches Paul communicated with were because of faulty eschatologies. Pate goes through the letters written by Paul and explains the Roman Eschatology/Roman Imperial Cult, non-Christian Jewish Eschatology and professing Christian faulty...

I wouldn't call this Bible uniquely applicable to a person's daily life as the Scripture is always applicable. That is not to say that I don't like this format, I do! I just needed to clarify that I don't quite agree with the title. This is a chronological Bible, interweaving chapters from various books of the Bible in their probable sequential order. This means that some chapters are split up and other parts of other chapters are placed in the gap to stay chronological.   There are many helpful charts to support the chronological aspect, some of my favorites being the several charts throughout the accounts of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, showing the "Kings To Date and Their Enemies"…I always get a bit confused about them. One of the other things I found very helpful were the little maps throughout, demonstrating where people went and where such and such a town was located. It gives you more comprehension of Biblical geography. There are also sev...

In this book, MacArthur attacks the 'Strange fire'/worship practice of   pneumacentrism/Holy Spirit centrism(Major focus upon the Holy Spirit)particularly in the Charismatic movement, and does a good job too.   He starts by reminding us to 'test the spirits' and then moves on to how the modern charismatic movement got started and how they misinterpret Scripture.   We look at the Scriptures to see what the work of the Holy Spirit actually looks like and what 'Spirit-filled' really means.   Speaking in tongues is addressed, of course, and we are given the history of how and why the Charismatics switched from viewing the word 'tongue' as being a human language to its being an unintelligible spirit babble.   They apparently tried out their 'tongues' on people in other countries, and it proved that their supposed 'languages' were not languages at all but merely gibberish.   They wanted to keep this babble and so reinterpreted the Script...

Joseph: And the Gospel of Many Colors is not a full fledged commentary on the account of Joseph, nor was it meant to be.   It is more of an overview of the life of Joseph using a Christo-centric perspective.   I wanted to read this book partly because I thought that perhaps I was misunderstanding what people mean by "Christo-centric" as a hermeneutic.   Some of Baucham's explanations, such as the following, encouraged me in that regard:   " This does not mean that we find Jesus in every verse.   Another objection to the redemptive-historical approach to the Old Testament narrative is that it inevitably leads to allegorizing the text. Suddenly, every part of the story refers to an aspect of Christ.   The pit can't just be a pit; it has to be a type of grave.   The prison can't just be a prison; it has to be a type of hell.   And, of course, coming out of prison and going before Pharaoh must be a type of resurrection.   The possibilities ar...

http://www.nlpg.com/the-new-answers-book-4 The interpretation of the Bible's account of Creation through the lens of science seems to be a popular thing amongst professing Christians nowadays.  T his is a very discouraging state of things, that Christians trust human observations before the Bible's declarations.   That is one reason why this book is so refreshing as the authors hold to God's Word as the starting point and as the 'lens' with which to interpret their scientific observations.      The interpretation of the Bible's account of Creation through the lens of science seems to be a popular thing amongst professing Christians nowadays. The New Answers book 4 by Ken Ham(editor ) and many others, is full of chapters dealing with questions in regards to 'issues' that may come up in discussions about Creation, and is also great for simply perusing possible answers as to how certain things about Creation week might be explained.   It...

Today is celebrated by some as Reformation Day, the day in 1517 when Martin Luther posted 95 theses questioning indulgences on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg. This act accelerated the Reformation in Germany and elsewhere.   Before recommending some resources for remembering the Reformation, I would like to offer some thoughts on the term 'reformed' as applied to modern Christians who believe in the sovereignty of God, election, perseverance of the Saints…etc.  My dad and I have had several talks about this term.  To put it plainly, we do not like the term.   The Reformation was about reforming back to the Bible, God's Word, as the so-called 'church' had strayed from that foundation.   I was born into a Christian family, we go to a church that is Biblically grounded, so we have no need to reform, but rather focus on conforming to God's Word.   The word 'Reformed' always points back to the Reformation, and the doctrines that the 'refo...

If you liked The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century , you'll be as excited as I was at finding out that there is a sequel, and a long sequel at that(8 Volumes). "The History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin". The sad thing is that Merle D'Aubigne didn't live long enough to finish it. But he did get a lot done. In this history, we'll return to France, Germany, Switzerland and visit some new places, including: England, Scotland, Italy, Spain and Geneva. What do you think of when you think of Geneva in connection with the Reformation? Calvin? The Geneva Bible? What about a fight for a Republic based on a constitution? That is where D'aubigne begins this work. Calvin isn't even at Geneva yet, nor has it been reformed. There is an evil bishop trying to gain control over the Republic, and there are disputes between the liberals and conservatives about giving up their liberties. If you find the History of the American ...

Who is Roger Sherman?   The name sounded vaguely familiar to me but didn't bring up any definite information in my head. I understood that he had something important to do with the founding of our nation.   W hat interested me in this book was that it appeared to be an argument against an exclusively secular interpretation of the founding documents.   "Historians are better than political scientists and law professors at recognizing that faith mattered to many Americans in the founding era, but even they have a tendency to treat America's founders as deists who embraced a rationalist approach to politics and who embraced secular documents such as the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights…"   Hall points out that, when discussing the founders' views of the separation of Church and State, people normally look at a select group of the most famous founders.  He believes that this is not the best course of action as, "these men are not ...

What Bible did the Apostles use to teach and evangelize the Gentiles and Hellenized Jews who spoke Greek?   What did they use when they wrote their epistles?   Many of them(if not all) used a Greek translation of the Hebrew, commonly called The Septuagint.   In this book the author, Timothy Michael Law,   explains the Septuagint's possible origins and talks about the significant differences that are found between this translation and the text of Hebrew manuscripts that we can reference.    This part of the book was what I was most looking forward to, where he would deal with the Apostles quotations from this version against what our Hebrew text says.   One of the most significant examples is found in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10 verse 5, where the writer is proving the sufficiency and necessity of Christ's sacrifice by quoting a portion of Psalm 40:   " Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest no...

I have followed some chronological Bible reading plans before, but have never used a Chronological Bible, so this is my first one and I am delighted with it. It has several timelines and also a timeline across the bottom of every page indicating what year, or approximate year, you are in at whatever point you are at in your reading.  As example of how this type of Bible arrangement works: when you reach the book of Acts and are reading at the time the letter to Galatians was probably written, the book of Galatians is inserted 'into', as it were, the book of Acts and you read it as a part of the account instead of as a separate book. It is so nice not to have to keep turning back and forth every few minutes in order to read chronologically, instead you can just read right through, simply turning one page after another. When you are done, you can just place a bookmark where you stopped instead of having to mark the spot on a reading chart when you are done. So convenient...

Chapter 2 - The Scriptural Basis of Christianity                                                                                You may view chapter 1  here John is sitting in the full lecture room a few minutes before the lecture is supposed to start.   He sits looking down at the Bible in his hands (opened to the Old Testament) but is listening intently to a conversation from the row behind him.   "Yes, I agree that this Septuagint theory is very interesting, but I looked up more information on the Septuagint last night, and its origin sounds rather nonsensical.   Apparent...