How to Understand and Apply the New Testament by Andrew David Naselli

Some months ago, Andy Naselli (professor of NT at Bethlehem College and Seminary) sent me a PDF of a new book he had just completed entitled How to Understand and Apply the New Testament. Over the next few weeks, I read it with great interest and, more importantly, with great benefit.

Here’s my bottom line: I like this book and I commend it to you.

Now a brief, informal review.

As you can tell from the title, this book serves as a basic primer on how to study the NT. The principles in it are, of course, applicable in many ways to the OT but there is a companion volume on the OT by Jason DeRouchie (who also teaches at Bethlehem). This book seems targeted primarily at students, perhaps the very people Andy teaches. It starts at the beginning and walks the reader through the process of, well, understanding and applying a NT text.

However, it is not just students who will benefit. Anyone with an interest in knowing the Word deeper will find this book and its methodology helpful. Sunday school teachers, Bible study or small group leaders, or any sort of Christian who takes the Word seriously will benefit. Even pastors who preach regularly will find it helpful as a refresher and a refiner of methods they already use. The chapters on Greek require some knowledge of Greek, but those who don’t know Greek can just skip them, or read it and learn a little.

There are twelve chapters, each of which deals with a specific area of study such as genre, text criticism, Greek, context, theology, application, etc. Each chapter is filled with clear and concise steps that are illustrated by examples that show the method being applied.

The book contains many personal anecdotes and stories because it was originally developed as a lecture series. This lends itself to an informal style of writing which actually helps the reading of it.

One of the downsides of this book is its length, running almost 350 pages of text not counting the front matter (TOC, Intro, etc.) and the end matter (glossary, indices).

But here’s why that doesn’t matter as much: Much of the length is found in the illustrations, which help the reader, but are not necessary to the point of the book. Don’t read that as an excuse to skip the illustrations the first time through. Read it as freedom to skip them the second or third time through and focus just on the steps as they apply to the passage in front of you. One could even benefit from a methodological handout that condenses the key questions to ask and things to look for to just a few pages. You might create that handout on your way through, or wait until Andy creates one of some sort. As Andy notes in the Introduction (don’t skip it), exegesis can’t be boiled down to a steps. It is both a science and an art that, over time, will become second nature of a sort. But until then, it is helpful to have a list of questions you need to answer and things you need to look for. This book will identify those things for you and give you direction on how to find them.

One thing I have noticed in Andy’s writing is his use of very detailed outlines. This book is no exception. Though it has a table of contents in which each chapter is named with a one line explanation, it also has a twelve-page Analytical Outline that is more detailed that gives all the major headings in the book and serve as a summary of the book. The downside of this Analytical Outline is that it doesn’t include page numbers. (Andy, see if you can get P&R to add those in.) This outline will help you to find particular parts of the book as you need them or want to review them.

Much more could be said and others have done that elsewhere.

In the end, I recommend How to Understand and Apply the New Testament and encourage you to pick it up and work your way through it. You will benefit from it.

The Cross of Ordinariness

A few years ago, D. A. Carson wrote a book entitled Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson. Another book is ordinary for D. A. Carson, who has written more books than many people have read. But this was no ordinary book, not even for Carson. It was a book about his dad.

Now the truth is that we would have never known of Pastor Carson were it not for Doctor Carson. That’s because, by all human standards, Pastor Carson was just ordinary. He never pastored a big church. He didn’t publish a lot of books. He wasn’t even a full-time pastor for much of his ministry. He spent some of his latter years tenderly caring for his ailing wife. And then he died.

He was, in a word, ordinary.

He was, in two words, like me. And like you … just a guy you’ve never heard of, living somewhere you’ve never heard of, pastoring a church you’ve never heard of. And doing it without giving up. He was just ordinary.

In these days, it is easy to fall in love with big. It is easy to see the extraordinary pastors and measure ourselves against them. It is easy to get discouraged by their visible fruit. It is easy to wonder what they are doing that we aren’t. It is easy to listen to them preach and copy their style, or God forbid, even their messages. It is easy to dream about what could be, if only you had a little bit more of this or a little bit less of that.

Then, it is easy to despair when driving to your second job, wondering if you shouldn’t just pack it in, box up the books, and go dig ditches or sell widgets because you will never be whatever that other pastor is. It’s not that it’s too hard to be that. It’s that you can’t get there from here. Your gifts, your abilities, and your opportunities simply are not sufficient for that.

And so you resign yourself to being ordinary. And let’s face it: In a world driven by success, ordinary is hard.

This is where a reality check helps.

The reality is that most churches are less than one hundred people and they will never be bigger than that. In fact, tens of millions of Christians meet every week in assemblies that wouldn’t even move the needle in a megachurch. And these small churches are pastored by people whose name will never show up on a conference speaking list or an Amazon search result. They will never be known outside their small church. They even wear a name tag at their local pastor’s fellowship to remove the awkwardness of having to introduce themselves yet again to the same people who forgot them from last year.

And the reality is that that’s okay. Being ordinary is, well, ordinary. What’s extraordinary is someone who is okay with being ordinary.

You see, most us of will have to bear the cross of ordinariness. It will weigh heavy on us. It will threaten to do us in and drive us off. If we give it too much thought, we still stumble under its weight. We will seek for the next best method or the next best church. We will lay in bed in the dark and wonder with tears if we are wasting our life. We will get up on Sunday and put on a good face and summon the energy to preach from a heart weakened by ordinariness. We will go home on Sunday afternoon and sleep off the disappointment and try to forget we have to start all over tomorrow. We will drift through a football game tempted by the fast food commercials, not because we are hungry, but because we think “Would you like fries with that?” has a better chance of a yes than “Will you follow Jesus with us?” And let’s face it, hearing “no” is a lot easier to take when it is about French fries than it is when it is about Jesus.

The reality is that though the cross of ordinariness may stress us and alarm us, it need not kill us. You see, to some God has given ten talents, and to others five, and to others one. He does not judge the man with one talent by the same standards he judges the man with five or ten. He will judge us according to the talents he has given and the vineyard in which he planted us for this season, however long it might last.

And when this season is over, whether by being planted in another vineyard or by being planted in the ground to await the great resurrection day, he will judge us only by the gifts and calling he gave to us. He will not judge us by the calling he gave to someone else.

So, like Tom Carson, grow where you are planted. Serve in an extraordinarily ordinary way. And be content to let God keep the final score.

It’s doubtful your son will write a book about you. But that’s okay too. Just be encouraged by the book that Doctor Carson wrote about Pastor Carson.

Books on Proverbs

I just finished a short series of messages on the book of Proverbs entitled “Solomon Says.” It was a topical series designed around exploring the wisdom that Solomon gives. It included titles like “Solomon Says Listen to Me,” or “Solomon Says Get Busy” (work), or “Solomon Says Drink Your Own Water” (marriage and sexuality), or “Solomon Says Watch Your Mouth” (the tongue), or “Solomon Says Get a Grip” (emotions), or “Solomon Says Be Careful” (money).

In this series, I came across a couple of new books, and reviewed some old ones.

Anthony Selvaggio’s A Proverbs Driven Life is an excellent book I ordered on a whim because it was on sale. It is good not just for preaching or teaching, but also for general reading. Anyone would profit from this book. I recommend it.

John Crotts’  Craftsmen: Christ-Centered Proverbs for Men also had some helpful sections in it. This, like Selvaggio, is organized topically, though a few less topics than Selvaggio.

H. Wayne House and Kenneth Durham’s Living Wisely in a Foolish World is a good resource, though it is a bit more dense than these other two, and IMO, not as easy to read.

I continue to think that Peter Steveson’s A Commentary on Proverbs is one of the best verse-by-verse treatments of Proverbs. The downside is that it uses the KJV as its primary text cited at the top of each page, but the upside is that it seems that it actually closely tracks the NASB in its explanation. Unlike some other commentaries (e.g., Hubbard, Communicator’s Commentary), it deals with each verse sequentially, so if you want to know what Proverbs 18:13 means, you can find it easily.  It is more helpful than Kidner (TNTC), IMO.

A final book for this list is Donald Orthner’s Wellsprings of Life. It is essentially a topical outline of Proverbs, assembling various proverbs under their topics. It is not sequential, but topical. It is helpful in that it helps to find verses on a topic that might not be found by a concordance search.

For You Conspiracy Theorists Out There

This book, The Man Who Knew Too Much: Hired to Kill Oswald and Prevent the Assassination of JFK, was a very fascinating book when I read it back in the 1993 or so when it first came out. There is apparently an updated version now.

I came across this synopsis of it today and it jogged my memory about Richard Case Nagell who, in September of 63, went into a federal bank and fired two shots into the ceiling in order to get arrested because he wanted to be in jail when Kennedy was shot so that no one could blame him for it. The rest you will have to read for yourself.

I tend to be a skeptical person, though I prefer that you call me discerning (or wise wouldn’t be a bad option either).

But no matter what you call me, if you have any interest in the Kennedy assassination, this book will be interesting to you.

The Trellis and The Vine – Marshall and Payne

This book has been highly recommended by others. Mark Dever said it was the best book he had ever read on the nature of church ministry (and he has read a few books on church ministry). And written a couple (which are good in themselves).

I finally got around to reading this one. And I like it.

The basic idea is based on a trellis and a vine. (I say that for those who might not figure it out on their own). A trellis is a structure; a vine is a plant. The vine grows on the trellis; the trellis exists for the vine to grow on. The trellis is not the point; the vine is.

In the same way, gospel growth (used throughout the book in contrast to church growth) is the vine; the church structure is the trellis. The point of the book is that ministry is to be about growing the vine, not the trellis. The trellis/church structure exists to support the vine/church/people.

I think a lot of churches are under the impression that if they grow the trellis, they can grow the vine. So we brainstorm and allocate resources (people and money) and space (rooms and calendar) to build a bigger, more elaborate trellis. But the vine doesn’t grow. In fact, the existing vine just gets spread out more thinly.

And in fact, very often the trellis becomes an albatross (to mix metaphors). Indeed, a very large albatross which is full of sacred cows (to mix metaphors once again). And you know what happens when you try to sacrifice a sacred cow.

Too many churches have a trellis that is virtually useless for growing a vine. But they have had the trellis for fifty years. It was useful for thirty of those years. Now it is rusty, bent up in a few places, falling down in some others. Only sparsely covered with a few twigs of the vine.

But it is “ours.” It’s what we do because … it’s what we have always done. And every successful church does this. Or at least they used to. So the trellis is exposed because the vine isn’t growing. And there’s no reason to stop doing something that we have done for so long.

The book is a clarion call to reconsider your trellis for the sake of the vine. It is not a book that discounts the usefulness of a trellis, or recommends having no trellis. It simply calls us to reconsider what we are doing.

Here’s my simple summation: Stop building structure and spend time with key people (PWWs) to make disciples of them so that they can go and make disciples of others. Build the trellis only as necessary to support the vine.

The truth is that for us as pastors, “trellis work is easier and less personally threatening. Vine work is personal and requires much prayer. It requires us to depend on God, and to open our mouths and speak God’s word in some way to another person” (p. 9). But “structures don’t grow ministry any more than trellises grow vines … most churches need to make a conscious shift—away from erecting and maintaining structures, and towards growing people who are disciple-making disciples of Christ” (p. 17).

I think this book is beneficial for people who take seriously the church that the Great Commission is to make disciples, not well-oiled church machines.

I have no problem with well-oiled church machines and large and elaborate trellises. But they should be the by-products of gospel-growth, that are supported and maintained by disciple-making disciples. They can be tools in which disciples are made. We simply need to remember that the Great Commission is about the vine, not the trellis.

Church Planting Is For Wimps – Mike McKinley

This is a new book (as in 2010) I received last week (because I bought and paid for it … no freebies here).

And I loved it. I read it this morning. (In other words, this is not John Owen or John Edwards. It’s not even John Piper. It’s Mike McKinley. So it’s a short book [126 pages including the appendices]. And it is easy to read.) But it’s good.

It’s a book about McKinley’s experiences in revitalizing/replanting Guilford Baptist Church.

Now, some of you will be uncomfortable because McKinley likes punk rock and has tattoos.

Get over it. It’s still profitable.

Others will be uncomfortable because he added “Baptist” back into the name because he thought it was borderline dishonest not to have it in there.

Get over that too. You should probably do it. If you’re not a Baptist, repent now and become one instead of waiting for heaven and having to get in the back of a long line to do it. (It’s a joke, people. See comments on humor below.)

Here’s the bottom line: McKinley has no secrets to church revitalization or church planting. Trust me, I was looking for them.

His formula is pretty simple: Preach the Word, and love people.

Now there’s a few other things thrown in, like church leadership, clear membership, live in the community you are trying to reach, protect your marriage, train leaders, get Capitol Hill Baptist Church behind you (okay, that wasn’t really a point … but it probably didn’t hurt the effort there).

Appendix 1 has the plan that Dever and McKinley put together to take to CHBC, which is interesting in and of itself to see their thoughts about how to do this.

It also has some pretty funny stuff in it. It’s my kind of humor, which means a some people might not get it and a lot won’t think it’s funny. But I did.

If you are interested in church planting or church revitalization, you will probably benefit from this book. I know I did. It encourages me to do what I am already convinced is the right thing (preach the word, love people, and live with the people you are trying to reach). It just reminds me that I have a long ways to grow in two of those areas.

I am encouraged to be reminded that it’s not a numbers games. Successful pastoring doesn’t mean blowing the doors off numbers wise.

I am reminded to make preaching the priority for church leadership and revitalization. If you make something else the priority, it’s because you don’t really believe that the Word is the way in which God builds his church.

And if I repeat everything that I thought was helpful, I would break copyright laws.

So get the book and read it. Enjoy it and learn from it.

Introducing the New Testament by Andrew David Naselli

This week, my friend Andy Naselli gave me a copy of his new (and first) book, Introducing the New Testament: A Short Guide to Its History and Message.

Some time ago, I had seen a manuscript of this book and am delighted to see it in print. It is a short introduction to New Testament that gives basic introductory information about each book of the New Testament such as author, date, recipients, and message.

It also has some broader chapters such as the Synoptic Gospels (discussing how Matthew, Mark, and Luke relate to each other), The New Testament Letters (sometimes called the epistles), and Paul: Apostle and Theologian. Each chapter includes discussion questions and additional resources for study.

This book is a condensation of the excellent Introduction to the New Testament written by Don Carson and Doug Moo, two top-rate NT scholars. The first edition had contributions by Leon Morris (hence it was called “Carson, Moo, and Morris”)

This is an excellent resource for those who are interested in studying the New Testament but are somewhat overwhelmed by the five hundred plus pages of Carson and Moo. It would work well in a local church setting for teaching a NT survey class, for individual study by a Bible study teacher or leader, as a quick reference when you don't want to read the big one, or for someone who just wants to know more.

Amazon says it will be available April 1, 2010.

Congratulations, Andy, and I am looking forward to more from you.

Books for Men

Someone recently asked me about books for men. Here’s a short list that comes to mind. Feel free to suggest others.

The Disciplines of a Godly Man – R. Kent Hughes – Hands down, the best book on men that I have read. My wife (who wasn’t my wife at the time) gave it to me more than sixteen years ago. I have read it multiple times. Among the most frequently visited books in my library.

The Complete Husband – Lou Priolo – An excellent and penetrating book on being a husband. Well worth the time to read it. Like Hughes, a bit painful at times. So brace yourself.

Living the Cross Centered Life – C. J. Mahaney – Not just for men, but a book every man needs to read and think about.

When Sinners Say I Do – Dave Harvey – An excellent book on marriage. Men, read it, and take the leadership in your marriage by living like a forgiven sinner who is extending the same kind of grace to your wife that you received from God.

Sex Is Not the Problem, Lust Is – Joshua Harris – A great book on biblical sexuality. Originally titled Not Even a Hint.

Thirteen Ways to Ruin Your Life

Thirteen Ways to Ruin your Life (by Jarrod Jones) is an excellent resource for dealing with sexual temptation and sexual sin. It is an easy reading book, that deals with the issues in a very clear and tactful way.

If you have a “friend” who struggles with sexual temptation, this would be a good way to help him or her out.

At the website, you can order a hard copy, or for the price of a little information, you can download a free .pdf file for personal use on your computer (not for printing).