When it comes to the Pastoral Epistles there is a wealth of good choices. The top four in the following list are all excellent high-level works. I would personally go for Knight and Marshall if money were no object (although Mounce and Towner would be just fine). Some of these scholars dance around Paul’s clear statement preventing women from being preachers and teachers of men. I have marked such with a (w’) 1. George W. Knight III – Good at …
Category: Bibliographies
I am not a covenant theologian. However, I am very familiar with it in both its pedo- and credo-baptist forms. While my ongoing series critiquing CT shows that I am in disagreement with many of its major hermeneutical tenets, I want my readers to know that I have a long-standing admiration for CT for its comprehensiveness and its ability to address many areas of Theology and Apologetics. Later in the series I am writing (of which this is an interlude), …
Part Two This post will be the last set of recommendations for those whom one might call “beginning students.” I had said that I would do Church history and biography, but first let me say something about the apologists Francis Schaeffer and C. S. Lewis. Surveying some of the works of these men does not mean that I endorse everything about their methodology or substance, but the importance of their work speaks for itself. Francis Schaeffer wrote small but thoughtful …
Part One I said in the last post that I would continue where I left off, so let me say something about books covering other aspects of Systematic Theology first. The doctrine of man and sin require some strong representation in these days. Since the books by Ryrie, Stott. Lightner and Boice already mentioned treat these issues well I shall not add any other books to the list with the exception of Martyn Lloyd-Jones’s The Plight of Man and the …
I received this question recently: “Thank you for all the material you put out. I have benefitted quite a bit. Do you have a list of books/reading that you would recommend as “must read” for someone wanting to grow theologically? I am a part-time worship pastor and full-time elementary music teacher. Previous experience as lay/part-time church planter, youth pastor, and young adult pastor. No seminary, relatively studied, conservative theologically.” As it’s nice to receive such requests (I remember doing the …
As with the selections on the Book of Revelation, this list will display some bias towards Dispensational works, although I don’t want to fill it up with just those. One big reason for that is because Dispensationalists have not written many great commentaries on any book of the Bible. Often-as-not they have been content to furnish basic commentaries for the masses. The fact is that if a person wishes to go deep into an inspired author he will need to …
I am convinced that the Book of Revelation ought to be interpreted as a prophecy and that its numbers and symbols have identifiable referents either close by or in other Books of the Bible. I have therefore given a list of works espousing the Dispensational point of view. Not that non-Dispensational writers aren’t useful, but accuracy of interpretation must come first. I have made note also of some non-dispensational works. Robert Thomas (2 Vols) – This is Thomas’s most …
Having been asked to recommend a few books on Calvinism I thought it might make a good post at Dr Reluctant. I myself am about as much a modified Calvinist as I am a modified Dispensationalist. Although many will not agree with me, I believe that “plain-sense,” old fashioned grammatico-historical hermeneutics requires some readjustment of standard Reformed formulations of Calvinist doctrines. My reason for this is that the hermeneutics of Reformed Calvinism, when aimed at eschatology, produces supercessionism and covenant …
Part Six The two small letters of Paul to the young Thessalonian Church are among the earliest of his writings. This means that they are also among the earliest writings of the New Testament – even for those of us who opt for the traditional dates of the Gospels. Although I am pretribulational it has to be admitted that Paul does not settle the date of the rapture in these letters. Therefore, what I look for is careful exegesis informed …
In the previous post I concentrated on men in England who helped me learn about the Bible and Theology. Quite unexpectedly, in God’s providence I came to the States in 1996 to work at a Baptist Church in Fairfield, California. That only lasted a year but I made some good friends. I also met the future Mrs H. there! Anyway, after leaving the church in Fairfield I started a church plant in Napa, which I pastored for over five years …
