Book Write-Up: Eat Your Ps, by William Carter, Jr.

William Carter, Jr. Eat Your Ps. Crosslink, 2018. See here to buy the book.

William Carter, Jr. is a pastor and has worked in the Christian music industry. This book discusses seven “P”s of the Christian life: praises, purging, prayers, promises, persecution, proverbs, and purpose. Carter artfully ties each “P” to a variety of pea, using a characteristic of that pea to make a homiletical point about the “P.” At the end of the book, he gives a recipe for black eyed peas and rice.

This book stood out to me because Oprah’s Dad recommends it. You hear about Oprah’s book club. Well, here is a book that Oprah’s Dad likes!

Also recommending this book is the President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group that was instrumental in the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement.

But what especially made me want to read this book is the author’s multidenominational background: his father was a Methodist, and his mother was a Holiness/Pentecostal. People’s religious journeys interest me. Maybe that is because I enjoy reading about different beliefs and have myself traversed the wild world of religion in my own searches for churches.

One of the endorsements on the back cover says, “It’s hard not to feel like you’re walking with a friend when you read his words.” I found that to be true in reading this book. It has its shares of anecdotes and insights, along with a friendly tone.

There were two parts of the book that I especially enjoyed. First, there was Carter’s delineation of the differences between the Methodist and the Holiness churches of his upbringing. The Methodist church was accepting, whereas the Holiness Church was intense. Carter appears to gravitate towards the Holiness view. Second, there was Carter’s story about the co-worker who mocked his frequent church attendance, and how that co-worker came to accept Christ. That story made me want to keep reading, wondering what would happen next.

The book tends to stress what we can do for God, rather than what God in Christ has done for us. I tend to lean more towards the latter, thinking that it glorifies God more. This book, however, has a “do more, do more” attitude. Still, Carter conveys a thirst for God and a devotion to God, and to what he believes God is doing in the world. That is edifying to read.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through Bookcrash. My review is honest.

Church Write-Up: Willfully Doubting Thomas; Hosea 1:10

Here are some items from today’s church activities:

A. The main text was John 21, which contains the story of Doubting Thomas. The youth pastor said that, when we doubt God, that is a good time to come to church, for God and God’s Spirit are at work there. Doubting Thomas found Jesus when he gathered with the other disciples, who were in hiding.

B. The pastor said that Thomas had faith, for Thomas in John 11:16 is willing to go with Jesus to Jerusalem and to die there with him. The pastor presented Thomas’s “doubt” in John 21 as a reluctance to forgive. Jesus had just commissioned his disciples to go out and spread forgiveness. The pastor speculated that Thomas did not want to forgive those who crucified Jesus and were forcing the disciples into hiding. We, similarly, are reluctant to forgive, but God can fill us with his forgiveness and thereby motivate us to spread forgiveness to others. According to the pastor, when the risen Jesus appeared to Thomas and blessed those who do not see but believe, Jesus was not rebuking Thomas but rather was pronouncing a blessing on those who will believe thereafter. They are the beneficiaries of Jesus’s work.

C. The Sunday school class focused on Hosea 1 and the interpretation of Hosea 1:10 (2:1) in II Peter 2:10. Due to Northern Israel’s idolatry, God plans to strip her of her identity as God’s people, to withdraw mercy, and to sow judgment. The names of Hosea’s children—-Lo-Ammi (“not my people”), Lo-Ruchama (“no mercy”), and Jezreel (which relates to sowing)—-reflect this. God promises eventually to reverse this judgment: Israel and Judah once more will become God’s people, they will receive mercy, and they will be sown in their land. Jezreel was known as a place of judgment, for that was where Jehu slaughtered Ahab’s line, the priests of Baal, and Jezebel (II Kings 8-10); the pastor drew a parallel with “Ground Zero” and “Columbine,” names that have come to be associated with tragedy. God promises that “Jezreel” will come to be associated with God’s restoration of Israel. In II Peter 2:10, God takes Gentiles, who lack an identity as God’s people and as recipients of God’s mercy, and makes them God’s people through Christ.

D. Hosea 1:10 (2:1) states: “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God” (KJV). What is the place where the Israelites were told that they are not God’s people, and where they will be called sons of the living God? The pastor referred to two possible solutions. One solution is that the “place” is the land of Israel; Hosea 2:25 seems to depict God affirming that the Israelites are his people after God sows them into their land. Another solution is that the “place” is the wilderness, for Hosea 2:14 presents God luring the Israelites into the wilderness and speaking tenderly to them before restoring them to their land; the pastor said that it was in the Sinai wilderness that God proclaimed the Israelites (and the mixed multitude with them) to be his people, and the LORD to be their God. It seems, though, that Israel is affirmed as God’s people in a variety of contexts, not just at Sinai (see this helpful list). Looking at commentaries, I saw still other solutions. One view is that God is saying that, instead of the Israelites not being God’s people, they will be God’s people; checking HALOT and BDB, however, I see no explicit indication that “maqom” means “instead,” for it predominantly refers to a physical place. Another solution, advanced in a targum, is that the place is Israel’s place of exile: the place of Israel’s punishment and scattering as a people will become the place where God will affirm her once more as God’s people. Yet another solution is that the “place” is wherever the Jews and Gentiles are seen as “not God’s people”: Jews and Gentiles who receive Christ become God’s people, wherever they may be. I think the most sensible solution is that Israel is affirmed as God’s people in the land of Israel, but that is a culmination of a process of God reaching out to Israel in love (i.e., in exile, in the wilderness).

E. The pastor said that Northern Israel never was historically returned to her land, for she disappeared from history after the Assyrians conquered her and took her into exile. Judah, by contrast, did return to her land. I was going to ask how the pastor envisions the promised restoration of Northern Israel taking place. I did not get to ask my question, but the pastor still addressed it, in some form. He seemed to say that it will be fulfilled in Christ. Perhaps he means that the Northern Israelites will be resurrected and then will be returned to their land.

Book Write-Up: The Revelation Mandate, by Todd Lewis

Todd Lewis. The Revelation Mandate: The Foundations of the Priesthood of Every Believer. WestBow, 2012. See here to purchase the book.

This book mixes preterist and idealist approaches to the Book of Revelation. The book is preterist in that it holds that the Book of Revelation primarily concerns events surrounding the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. It still seems to hold that God will judge the powers-that-be in the future. It is rather idealist in that it interprets several details in the Book of Revelation as general spiritual truths about the church, such as the idea that the church perseveres amidst a hostile world.

The book is not exactly a verse-by-verse commentary, but it does go through the Book of Revelation sequentially. The author is familiar with the Bible and brings in other biblical references.

The author also holds to a rather “Lordship” view of salvation: that mere intellectual assent to the Gospel is not enough, for one needs to obey God.

Some might see preterism as a bit of a stretch, thinking that it artificially forces the Book of Revelation into the events of 70 CE Jerusalem. That critique is valid. Some may not receive a lot of spiritual encouragement from a “Lordship” view of salvation, recognizing that they fall short.

This book is still a pleasure to read. The prose is elegant and also weighty. The paragraphs could get rather long, in places, and that was not always necessary. The author presents his views in a convincing manner: not so much in the sense that his arguments reflect the only legitimate way to interpret the Book of Revelation, but in the sense that readers could get inside his mind and see how he arrives at his conclusions.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through BookLook Bloggers. My review is honest.

Church Write-Up: And the Evening and the Morning Were the Seventh Day

In his Easter Sunday sermon, the pastor shared a conclusion that he drew during his personal morning devotional time.

In Genesis 2:1-3, God rests on the seventh day after creating the heavens and the earth. The seventh day is the only day in this creation account that is not punctuated with “and the evening and the morning was the Xth day.”

We finally find the completion of the Sabbath in Luke 23:56. Speaking of the women who were following Jesus’s dead body to the tomb, the passage states: “And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment” (KJV). The very next verse, Luke 24:1, refers to the first day of the week, when the women encountered the empty tomb.

The point here, according to the pastor, is that Jesus’s resurrection marks the beginning of a new week, even a new creation.

The question that the pastor raised was how this can be true, when people’s dismal lives of death, dysfunction, disappointment, alienation, and even tragedy (such as that in Sri Lanka) continue. We will wake up the morning after Easter, and our lives will remain the same.

The difference is that Jesus is with us in those lives and offers us hope in the midst of them. The pastor engaged Luke 24:12, which states that Peter marveled after seeing the empty tomb. He was baffled and confused. But his later encounter with the risen Christ led to a joyful certainty.

Church Write-Up: Good Friday 2019

Here are items from today’s Good Friday service.

A. We sang the song, “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted.” One of the stanzas said:

You who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed; see who bears the awful load;
It’s the Word, the Lord’s Anointed, Son of Man and Son of God.

This reminded me of something I read last night. I was going through Jonathan Edwards’s History of the Work of Redemption, and Edwards was talking about how arrogant it is for people to try to be their own saviors: to think that their mere religious activities can earn them God’s favor. It took the very death of the Son of God to save us, so how can the thought even enter our minds that our own paltry “goodness” can save us? If our good works can save us, why did Christ even go to the effort of coming to earth, living a righteous life, and dying for our sins? That is a good point. At the same time, I find myself thinking: “I hope God notices my church attendance, or my praying, or my Bible reading.” It is not that I think those things by themselves are meritorious. I just hope that God recognizes and respects them as attempts to seek him.

B. In John 19:25-27, Jesus instructs the beloved disciple to take care of Jesus’s mother, Mary. The pastor read: “Lord Jesus, while You suffered the agony of the cross, You remembered, in love, Your sorrowing mother. With that same love and pity, bless all who love others, especially those whose hearts are torn by loss or burdened with worry. In Your mercy, gather all within the peace of Your cross, so that all may love each other as they love you.”

Jesus on the cross took care of his sorrowful mother. Good Friday should not just be about how we are sinful, but it is also about how Jesus is good. That passage also stood out to me because my own extended family is dealing with looming loss.

C. The liturgy said: “Lord God, may we learn by Christ’s example to love others as we love ourselves; forgiving the worst we find in others and in ourselves; rejoicing in the best we know of others and ourselves.”

Love the good in ourselves and others? But are we not all sinners? I suppose that it can be humbling to realize that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness. How can I look down on somebody else, when I myself am flawed? But I think that part of appreciating people is acknowledging the good that they do, or at least try to do.

Church Write-Up: Maundy Thursday 2019

Here are items from today’s Maundy Thursday service.

A. The pastor said that Luke foreshadows Christ’s death and resurrection, as if those were the reasons that Christ came. Luke 2:7 states that Jesus, as an infant, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in the manger because there was no room in the inn, or “kataluma” in Greek. Luke 23:53 uses “kataluma” for the place where Jesus and his disciples ate the last supper. There was no room at the inn when Jesus was born, but there is room at the Lord’s supper. Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes as an infant, and he was wrapped in linen as a corpse in Luke 23:53 (though the Greek word for “wrap” is different in those passages).

B. This is a fallen world. Our dysfunction attests to that, and we can become so preoccupied with our dying bodies that we do not rejoice in eternal life. Fallenness weighs us down.

C. The Lord’s supper was to be a supper of remembrance: Jesus said “Do this in remembrance of me.” “Remember” in Hebrew is richer than mere recollection: it means to re-experience, or relive. Israelites relived the Exodus at the Passover. Christians at the Lord’s supper re-experience Christ’s last supper, but also get a taste of the banquet that Christ will eat with the saints in the eschaton. The pastor talked about how his grandmother used to make him meringues cooked in Mexican vanilla because he liked them, and, anytime he smells Mexican vanilla, he is transported into his grandmother’s kitchen.

D. The pastor talked about God meeting people amidst disaster. After the Columbine massacre, it was “Good Shepherd” Sunday at the Lutheran church that he pastored. After 9/11, there was a cross amidst the rubble, which many took as a sign. When Lutheran churches burned down in fires, the cross still stood. This is a testimony that God meets people amidst disaster, which is what the cross itself is about.

E. On “D.”, the pastor seemed to imply that God arranged for Good Shepherd Sunday to follow Columbine, even though he did not want to say that God caused Columbine. God was working providentially to meet people in the midst of disaster. The pastor does not believe that God causes disasters but meets people in the midst of them. Indeed, saying that God caused Columbine then comforted people is a troubling idea: it is like running a person over and then taking him to the emergency room. Some may argue, though, that God permitted Columbine to provide an opportunity for people to turn their attention to God, which is important in its own right. But I doubt that God decided to schedule Good Shepherd Sunday in response to when he foresaw that the Columbine massacre would occur. That is quite a bit of micromanaging. Yet, I can understand people looking at that and concluding that what happened is more than a coincidence.

F. A convicting item from the liturgy: “When others need mercy and kindness, we often fail to acknowledge or fulfill their earnest needs.”

Book Write-Up: Thy Kingdom Come, by J. Dwight Pentecost

J. Dwight Pentecost. Thy Kingdom Come: Tracing God’s Kingdom Program and Covenant Promises Throughout History. SB Publications, 1990. See here to buy a later edition of this book.

J. Dwight Pentecost was a professor of Bible at Dallas Theological Seminary. This book, Thy Kingdom Comes, traces the Kingdom of God from creation through the millennial reign of Christ.
For Pentecost, God ruled before creating Adam, and God has always been and always will be sovereign. But God created Adam to rule the earth on God’s behalf. Adam forfeited that mission through his disobedience, however, and God’s subsequent preservation of a committed people, the nation of Israel, and the Davidic dynasty are all continuations of God’s desire to rule the earth through human beings. This goal will find its culmination in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ on earth. Christ offered to set up such an earthly kingdom at his first coming, but the nation of Israel rejected him. Consequently, the Kingdom of God is currently in a different phase. Presently, it is a spiritual kingdom in which God rules individual Christians and the church. After the rapture of the church, God will once more offer an earthly kingdom to Israel, and Christ will rule on earth after the Tribulation.

I wanted to read this book to understand classic dispensational rationales for God’s policies in the different dispensations. I had read dispensational attempts to identify the dispensations, but little effort to explain why God acted as God did in those dispensations. Pentecost’s book did not meet my hopes in this area. Pentecost indeed is a dispensationalist, in that Pentecost distinguishes between Israel and the church and between Christ’s reign as the Davidic king and his present reign at God’s right hand. But Pentecost does not appear to distinguish God’s modus operandi throughout the various dispensations, at least not radically. In each dispensation, people are right with God by faith, but that faith is worked out and made evident through obedience to God (i.e., law, good works). Citing Galatians 3:21, Pentecost contends that the law does not contradict the promises of God but coexists with them. As far as this particular book is concerned, I did not see a model in which people were saved by works in Old Testament times, then they were saved solely by God’s free grace in New Testament times, but then people will have to add obedience and perseverance to their faith to be saved after the rapture of the church. Pentecost does acknowledge, though, that the new covenant entails God giving the Spirit, which enables people to obey the law. That means that the new covenant brings something new.

This book was still worth my time and effort, even if it fell short of my expectations. Pentecost attempts to explain biblical passages as he goes through the history of God’s kingdom. Prominent in his scenario is his interpretation of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. For Pentecost, the Israelite generation that rejected Christ reached a point where they could not be forgiven. Individuals could still save themselves from that sinful generation, but God’s judgment of that generation was set, no turning back. God will restore Israel in the future, but not that specific generation, since it has forfeited forgiveness. Incidentally, Pentecost thinks that generation sealed its fate prior to Matthew 13, which marks when Jesus’s parables began to highlight a spiritual kingdom; Pentecost disagrees with dispensationalists who argue that God re-offered the earthly Kingdom to Israel in the Book of Acts.

On a related note, Pentecost argues that God’s covenant with Israel is unconditional, yet Israel’s experience of God’s blessings within that covenant was conditional on her obedience to the Torah. God will never forsake God’s commitment to Israel, yet Israel’s enjoyment of covenant blessings—-life, abiding in the land, prosperity—-depends on her obedience to God. This is helpful and unhelpful at the same time, for where does the covenant end and the blessings of the covenant begin?

Some of Pentecost’s points are intriguing but could have used more development. He interprets the Parable of the Talents, for example, in terms of Jesus judging the latter-day remnant of Israel, not God’s judgment of Christians. This caught my attention because I remembered talking with a Dallas Theological Seminary student who said that her professors dismissed the idea that the Parable of the Talents contradicts once-saved-always-saved, since the Parable concerns Israel, not the church. I am putting Pentecost’s view on my mental shelf for future reference, even though he could have supported it more effectively.

Occasionally, Pentecost tossed in his social and political opinions, as when he spoke against feminism and labor unions. I think this is a one-sided approach to the Bible, but Pentecost’s anti-feminist stance played a significant role in his interpretation of Genesis 3:16, where God tells Eve that her husband will rule over her. For Pentecost, God there reaffirms hierarchy rather than instituting it for the first time, since Adam had violated the hierarchy by listening to his wife and eating the fruit rather than being the spiritual leader.

Pentecost was able to explain passages that non-dispensationalists could advance against his position. Was James in Acts 15 saying that that particular time was when Christ was reigning as Davidic king and including Gentiles? No, says Pentecost. Christ is not reigning as Davidic king now but will only do so after his second coming. James is saying that, because the Gentiles will worship God as Gentiles during the millennium, God accepts their worship in his time, as well, without requiring them to become Jews. Such a solution is genius, even if some may think it a stretch.

Pentecost also offered in-depth proposals in response to questions, such as the question of why God gave the law, and why Jesus was baptized even though he was without sin. His solutions were edifying and made a degree of sense.

I am open to reading other Pentecost books in the future.