ESV Gospel Transformation Bible

I love Bryan Chapell. I love the English Standard Version of the Bible. I love the Christ-centered, gospel-grounded understanding that I've come to have of the overarching narrative of the Scriptures.

For all these reasons and many more--including (but not limited to) the involvement of Dane Ortlund and Scotty Smith--I can't wait to see the ESV Gospel Transformation Bible. Check out the video below.

A Word for Preachers...Alexander on the Authority of Scripture

"(O)utside Holy Scripture, we have no authoritative Word from God. With the eroding of confidence in the authority of Scripture in our own generation, it is not at all surprising that there has been an evacuation of authority from the pulpit. The decline in preaching is almost inevitably a result of such an absence of conviction concerning the authority of Scripture. The history of the Christian church bears ample and sad testimony to this connection.

"The whole cast of a truly biblical ministry will be a concern that people should recognize our only interest is not in selling our own line, or persuading people of our own opinion, or seeking that they might adopt our own view on a particular issue, but in humbly, obediently, and openly seeking to deal with what Holy Scripture says, opening it up and making it plain. The task has never been more clearly illustrated than in the ministry of Nehemiah in Nehemiah 8 where the people are met together under the Word of God. The ministry which the Levites fulfilled was to 'read from the book of the the Law of God, making it clear and giving meaning so that the people could understand what was being read' (Neh. 8:8)."

Eric J. Alexander
What is Biblical Preaching?

A Word for Preachers...Stott on Studying the Word of God

"The systematic preaching of the Word is impossible without the systematic study of it. It will not be enough to skim through a few verses in daily Bible reading, nor to study a passage only when we have to preach from it. No. We must daily soak ourselves in the Scriptures. We must not just study, as through a microscope, the linguistic minutiae of a few verses, but take our telescope and scan the wide expanses of God's Word, assimilating its grand theme of divine sovereignty in the redemption of mankind. 'It is blessed,' wrote C. H. Spurgeon, 'to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your spirit is flavoured with the words of the Lord, so that your blood is Bibline and the very essence of the Bible flows from you.'"

John Stott
The Preacher's Portrait

A Word for Preachers...Stott on How We Handle Scripture

"It is certain that we cannot handle Scripture adequately in the pulpit if our doctrine of Scripture is inadequate. Conversely, evangelical Christians, who have the highest doctrine of Scripture in the Church, should be conspicuously the most conscientious preachers. The fact that we are not should cause our heads to hang in shame. If Scripture were largely a symposium of human ideas, though reflecting the faith of the earliest Christian communities, and lit up by an occasional flash of divine inspiration, then a fairly casual attitude to it would be pardonable. But if in Scripture we are handling the very words of the living God, 'words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit' (1 Cor. 2:13), God's words through men's, his own witness to his own Son, then no trouble should be too great in the study and expression of them."

John Stott

Between Two Worlds: The Challenge of Preaching Today

A Word for Preachers...Lloyd-Jones on the Authority of Scripture

"While men believed in the Scriptures as the authoritative Word of God and spoke on the basis of that authority you had great preaching. But once that went, and men began to speculate, and to theorise, and to put up hypotheses and so on, the eloquence and the greatness of the spoken word inevitably declined and began to wane. You cannot really deal with speculations and conjectures in the same way as preaching had formerly dealt with the great themes of the Scriptures. But as belief in the great doctrines of the Bible began to go out, and sermons were replaced by ethical addresses and homilies, and moral uplift and socio-political talk, it is not surprising that preaching declined."

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Preachers & Preaching

Isaiah 53

The words of the prophet Isaiah, written 700 years before Christ:

    Who has believed what he has heard from us?
        And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
    For he grew up before him like a young plant,
        and like a root out of dry ground;
    he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
        and no beauty that we should desire him.
    He was despised and rejected by men;
        a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
    and as one from whom men hide their faces
        he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
    Surely he has borne our griefs
        and carried our sorrows;
    yet we esteemed him stricken,
        smitten by God, and afflicted.
    But he was pierced for our transgressions;
        he was crushed for our iniquities;
    upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
        and with his wounds we are healed.
    All we like sheep have gone astray;
        we have turned—every one—to his own way;
    and the LORD has laid on him
        the iniquity of us all.
    He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
        yet he opened not his mouth;
    like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
        and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
        so he opened not his mouth.
    By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
        and as for his generation, who considered
    that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
        stricken for the transgression of my people?
    And they made his grave with the wicked
        and with a rich man in his death,
    although he had done no violence,
        and there was no deceit in his mouth.
    Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
        he has put him to grief;
    when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
        he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
    the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
    Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;
    by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,
        make many to be accounted righteous,
        and he shall bear their iniquities.
    Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,
        and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
    because he poured out his soul to death
        and was numbered with the transgressors;
    yet he bore the sin of many,
        and makes intercession for the transgressors.

(Isaiah 53, ESV)

Lamentations: A Tough Book to Handle

Recently in my personal devotions, I have been reading through the book of Lamentations.  In light of this fact, I found it providentially beneficial the other day when I came across a great post by fellow pastor, Erik Raymond entitled, Can Your Theology Handle the Book of Lamentations?  In it he deals with the fact that the way God is often portrayed in this book (as a God of righteous judgment and wrath) might not fit snugly into our preconceived notions of God.

Can your theology handle this book? Or, are you more comfortable ignoring these dark periods in the Bible? Are you more comfortable giving God an extreme makeover so that he is nicer and more palatable?

Lamentations forces those of us who affirm the authority and inerrancy of the Bible to come to grips with a God who gets really angry at sin and then shows it in judgment. This is who he is throughout the Bible, not just in Lamentations.

This is good news for us, because when we honestly assess our situations, we are forced to come to the conclusion that our sin is every bit as heinous as that for which Israel was judged.  And just as their was grace available to Israel as a result of God's steadfast love and covenantal faithfulness to his people, so to it is available to us in the gospel.

In the gospel, through the work of Christ, we have Lamentations come into full view.

• We understand that God is a judging God—for he has judged his own son for our sins.
• We understand that we are sinners—God has crushed his own son in our place so that justice might be paid.
• We understand that grace is abundant—God has acted upon his promises of forgiveness by lavishing his people in grace.

What beautiful truths and what a beautiful framing of the book of Lamentations.  Click here to read Erik's entire post.

Wednsday's Words of Wisdom...Christopher J.H. Wright and a Biblical Response to Evil

"Whereas we often ask 'Why?' people in the Bible more often asked 'How long?' Their tendancy was not to demand that God give an explanation for the origin of evil but rather to plead with God to do something to bring about an end to evil. And that, we shall see, is exactly what God has promised to do."

Christopher J. H. Wright
The God I Don't Understand

A Word for Preachers...Willimon on the Power of the Word

"Sometimes the power of the Word is not evident.  Jeremiah was a laughing stock; Hosea, a cuckold; and Ezekiel, an exile -- which may be God's way of telling us that no one can judge the power of God's word by its results.  God is in charge of the results.  It is enough for us to proclaim the word and to believe that in doing so we change the world whether the world knows it or not, whether we know it or not, simply by standing and speaking the words we have been given to say, words of love and challenge, words of judgment and grace, words of such truth and terrible clarity that sometimes we tremble to say them out loud."

William Willimon
Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry

A Word for Preachers...Alexander on Scripture and Authority

"However, we must never forget that exousia (the Greek word for "authority") is a New Testament concept, behind which lies the fact that the ultimate authority belongs to God, and that he mediates that authority through his Word.  So the true picture in the New Testament is not that of a congregation under the authority of the preacher: but of both preacher and congregation under the authority of God's written Word.  Indeed, it seems to me that the fundamental place of preaching in the church is simply a corollary of the fundamental place of Scripture in the church.  If you erode the latter, you will certainly erode the former.  Church history has consistently demonstrated this.  To be logical and consistent, if we say that Scripture is fundamental to the church's life and continuance, then it is the exposition of Scripture which is fundamental to the church's pattern of activity."

Eric Alexander

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Packer on Knowing God

"God is not the sort of person that we are; his wisdom, his aims, his scale of values, his mode of procedure differ so vastly from our own that we cannot possibly guess our way to them by intuition or infer them by analogy from our notion of ideal manhood.  We cannot know him unless he speaks and tells us about himself.

"But in fact he has spoken.  He has spoken to and through his prophets and apostles, and he has spoken in the words and deeds of his own Son.  Through this revelation, which is made available to us in holy Scripture, we may form a true notion of God; without it we never can."

J.I. Packer
Knowing God

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...John Newton on God's Guidance

"In general, he guides and directs his people, by affording them, in answer to prayer, the light of his Holy Spirit, which enables them to understand and to love the Scriptures.  The word of God is not to be used as a lottery; nor is it designed to instruct us by shreds and scraps, which, detached from their proper places, have no determinate import; but it is to furnish us with just principles, right apprehensions to regulate our judgments and affections, and thereby influence and direct our conduct."

John Newton

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Spurgeon on God's Revelation to Man

"God does not give a fresh revelation, but rivets the old one.  When it has been forgotten, and laid in the dusty chamber of our memory, he fetches it out and cleans the picture, but does not paint a new one.  There are no new doctrines, but the old ones are often revived.  It is not, I say, by any new revelation that the Spirit comforts.  He does so by telling us old things over again; he brings a fresh lamp to manifest the treasures hidden in Scripture; he unlocks the strong chests in which the truth had long lain, and he points to secret chambers filled with untold riches; but he coins no more, for enough is done."

Charles Spurgeon

A Word for Preachers...John Stott on the Power of the Word

"(One) conviction which preachers need about Scripture is that God's Word is powerful. For not only has God spoken; not only does God continue to speak through what he has spoken; but when God speaks he acts. His Word does more than explain his action; it is active in itself. God accomplishes his purpose by his Word; it 'prospers' in whatever he sends it forth to do. (Is. 55:11)"


John Stott

What's Your Attitude Toward the Bible?

"In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word." (Psalm 119:14-16)

Below is one of the most simultaneously convicting and encouraging videos I have ever seen.  As I watched it, these two thoughts crossed my mind:

1. What a great grace it is that the infinite and eternal God of the universe has not only revealed himself to us in his word, but has given it to us in a language we can understand!
2. While I give intellectual ascent to the first point, why doesn't the pattern of my life more regularly bear this fact out?  That is to say, why am I so often satisfied with giving my attention to the likes of TV shows and facebook, when God has enabled me to give my attention to him?  Why is it that my reaction to opening up God's word is not more like the Kimyal people of Indonesia (if not in form, at least in spirit)?

May we all (starting with me), be amazed afresh every day with the wonders of the Bible.  And may we all, like the Kimyal people, hold God's word in our hands and place it in our hearts.

(HT: Collin Hansen)

The Unfaithful People of a Faithful God

One of my favorite churches, The Crossing in Columbia, Missouri, put together the following  video which serves to remind us of two things:

1) Whatever self-generated righteousness with which we try to clothe ourselves is really nothing but a polluted garment in the eyes of God (Isaiah 64:6).

2) Nevertheless, even in the midst of our faithlessness, God is still faithful to those who find their identity and righteousness in Him (2 Timothy 2:13).

As I've highlighted before (both here and here) and as my friends at The Crossing point out here, the Bible is neither a book of rules nor a book of heroes, but rather it is the story of Jesus as the one true hero.

Only Jesus’ faithful life and death for our sin and resurrection to guarantee the full redemption and restoration of humanity and the earth IS the point.

Our salvation is God’s doing from first to last through Christ and his Holy Spirit.

Watch the video below, and if you'd like, click here to listen to a recent sermon on the topic by The Crossing's pastor, Dave Cover.  And may we all be like the man who cried out to Jesus in Mark 9:24, "I believe!  Help my unbelief!"


Revelation of Humanity from The Crossing on Vimeo.

The Jesus Storybook Bible

Yesterday I passed on a blog post by Dane Ortlund in which he asked a number of theologians to attempt to share the message of the Bible in a single sentence.  It got me to thinking of how many people (Christians and non-Christians alike) have a  faulty conception of the Bible, considering it merely a book of rules we must follow.  At the same time, others see it as a book of heroes we should emulate.  In her introduction to The Jesus Storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd-Jones offers what is, in my opinion, a quite helpful corrective:

No, the Bible isn't a book of rules, or a book of heroes.  The Bible is most of all a Story.  It's an adventure story about a young Hero who came from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne — everything — to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that have come true in real life!

You see, the best thing about this story is — it’s true.

There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.

It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every
story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a  puzzle — the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.

I highly recommend The Jesus Storybook Bible, not only for children, but for adults as well.  I have personally found reading it to be quite devotional in nature.  As I pointed out in  Part 1 of last year's Disney series, I greatly appreciate this idea that the Bible tells the one true Story.  And I especially enjoy the way Lloyd-Jones tells the Old Testament stories in a way that is simple and Christ-exalting, realizing that all of them ultimately point to him.

If you'd like to check it out, free MP3 and PDF downloads are available at The Jesus Storybook Bible website.

Reducing the Bible to One Sentence

Dane Ortlund had a really neat post over at his blog today.  He asked a number of prominent pastors and theologians an interesting question and compiled their answers for our perusal.  The question: "What's the message of the Bible in one sentence?"

Among the answers I really enjoyed were the following:

Kevin DeYoung: A holy God sends his righteous Son to die for unrighteous sinners so we can be holy and live happily with God forever.

George Robertson: The Bible is the record of God's promise of and deliverance through Jesus Christ.

Jay Sklar: The first sentence that comes to mind is that of my colleague Michael D. Williams, who describes the Bible's story about the world as follows: God made it, we broke it, Jesus fixes it!

Erik Thoennes: The main message of the Bible is that the one true God is displaying his glory primarily in redeeming and restoring his fallen creation by fulfilling his covenant promises and commands through the glorious person and atoning work of Christ.

Doug Wilson: Scripture tells us the story of how a Garden is transformed into a Garden City, but only after a dragon had turned that Garden into a howling wilderness, a haunt of owls and jackals, which lasted until an appointed warrior came to slay the dragon, giving up his life in the process, but with his blood effecting the transformation of the wilderness into the Garden City.

You can read the whole post here.

45% Off ESV Bibles

As I've mentioned before both here and here, my favorite translation of the Bible is the English Standard Version.  Currently, Westminster Seminary Bookstore is running a special (through December 7) that cuts 45% off the price of all ESV Bibles.  Click here to examine what's available.

Why the ESV?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am a big fan of The ESV Study Bible.  That post dealt mainly with the many wonderful tools (commentary, study notes, articles, maps, charts, pictures, artwork, etc.) it gives to the Bible student, but it also made note of the fact that the English Standard Version is my favorite Bible translation for its combination of readability and fidelity to the original texts.

Perhaps I am biased, as a number of my seminary professors were involved in the translation process for this version, but as the video below demonstrates, I am far from alone in my affinity.


ESV Trusted By Leaders from Crossway on Vimeo.