Tag Archives: C.S. Lewis

The Summer Reading List: 2016 Edition

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My days of letting out a long-awaited sigh of relief after having turned in the final paper of the semester are (for the time being) behind me. Now, summer really isn’t so different from any other time of the year. But I still love summer reading lists. As I said last year (in The 2015 Edition), it still makes my heart glad to see people around me (teachers, professors, students, and headmasters) “giddy with the prospect of reading time arriving thanks to the summer months.” Well, that’s still true. So let’s once again delve into this year’s list of books that I hope to read by the time autumn comes back around (and classes for those involved in such things). I truly intend to get through all these titles, but I’m also quite aware that my literary eyes are probably far too big for my stomach. Still, it will be fun to try.

Five New Voices

1. Francis Watson. He’s an English scholar who has devoted most of his career to New Testament studies and theological hermeneutics. Watson has taught at Durham University since 2007, and I’ve been wanting to read him for quite a while:

fourfold gospel

The Fourfold Gospel: A Theological Reading of the New Testament Portraits of Jesus. From the book’s description on Amazon: “Francis Watson, widely regarded as one of the foremost New Testament scholars of our time, explains that the four gospels were chosen to give a portrait of Jesus. He explores the significance of the fourfold gospel’s plural form for those who constructed it and for later Christian communities.” I recently finished Richard Hays’ excellent Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, so I’m excited to listen to Watson’s perspective on the significance of the fourfold nature of the Gospels with Hays’ work in mind. Continue reading →

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Why Growing up in Christ Matters

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plants*A version of this essay previously appeared at Theologues.com (RIP)

In much of Christian culture, a lot of attention gets paid to the need for people to reach a moment of decision and place their faith in Jesus, to be “born again.” This isn’t surprising. After all, beginnings matter, and birth is essential. Jesus Himself used birth as a metaphor during his conversation with Nicodemus early on in John’s Gospel. Jesus told him that in order to see the kingdom of God he needed to be “born from above” (NRSV) or “born again” (NIV). Later on in the same chapter, Jesus also (famously) told him that, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16 NRSV).

So yes, repentance and initial belief in Christ are important, and I don’t want to minimize that. However, I also don’t want to end with that part of the story. New birth in Christ is supposed to lead into the long, painful, and beautiful process of growing up. In his 2010 book, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing up in Christ, Eugene Peterson notes that the twin metaphors of spiritual birth and growth aren’t meant to stand apart; one is supposed to flow into the other (p.3). However it seems that, in some quarters at least, so much emphasis gets put on making sure people get “saved” that the task of walking with them as they grow to maturity in Christ can be treated like something of an afterthought, and that isn’t healthy. Continue reading →