Japan was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami earlier today. Beyond our prayers for continued rescue and rebuilding, I’m sure we’ll soon start seeing ways to help out financially.
Back when the last major tsunami hit southeast Asia, John Piper had some helpful words to say which more or less still apply.
T. C. Robinson also has a helpful post on the topic.
In other posts around the net, Rob Bell’s yet to be released book is still a hot topic.
Tim Challies and Aaron Armstrong posted the first full review of it.
Carl Trueman pointed out that Bell is sloppy when it comes to his use of Luther (as in he misrepresents Luther and gives you no footnote to check him on it).
Denny Burk explains why Zondervan rejected the opportunity to publish Bell’s new book.
On a lighter note, the secret diary of D. A. Carson was resurrected to comment on the Bellapalooza.
Beyond Bell, there were several good posts over at Parchment and Pen:
- Michael Patton with a short cartoon on the difference between Christianity and other religions
- Tim Kimberley with a King James Bible timeline
- Lisa Robinson with tips on engaging in honest theological dialogue
Justin Taylor comments on a helpful Bible memory app.
Dan Phillips has a post on two different ways of thinking.
And lastly, my posts from this week:
- Casting Call for the Next Jesus Movie
- Responding to a Video Trailer the Right Way (a bit snarky, my apologies)
- Update to Determining Your Reformed Quotient
- The Four Year Track in seminary
- John Frame, N. T. Wright: Kindred Spirits? (not that they talk about the same things, but they are raising questions in a godly, well reasoned way)
Comments
5 responses to “In Case You Missed It”
For some reason, I’m engaged that Frame is being lumped with Wright in some way. 🙂
Thanks for the plug.
No problem 🙂
The main link with Frame in right I have in mind is that they are both raising questions from Scripture that create issues for the hardcore Reformed. They are both in different fields, pursuing different tasks yet both get their fair amount of Reformed rocks thrown their way.
And I’ve been reading both of them this past semester a good bit, so there’s another connection, right?
Ah,
I’ve not read that much of Frame. But what are some of these questions?
Maybe not as intense as Wright’s but he strongly questions traditionalism in general and so doesn’t approve of using the history of a doctrine as the “proof” of its correctness. He has some interesting thoughts on the doctrine of God, and then of course there is his triperspectival methodology which is at times maybe overdone, but it does help you think through doctrines in a way you might not have before, as well as seeing better how certain things relate.
To make it a little more concrete, Wright raised questions about imputation at the exegetical level, Frame raises them at the theological level but only indirectly. His discussion of God’s attributes overlapping (so that in the case of righteousness, God’s righteousness is infinite) lead to the conclusion that in a certain sense, no attributes are technically communicable, but can only be possessed by creatures analogically. In this way, it is somewhat incoherent to speak of a person being granted Christ’s righteousness since a finite person couldn’t possess an infinite attribute. Much better to say that we are counted righteous in Christ, which if I understand rightly is what Wright argues for (as does Calvin).