Tools to dig deep

The introduction to the ESV Reader’s Bible (Crossway, 2014) points out “one downside of modern editions of the Bible. … The addition of chapters, verses, and other non-inspired material can hinder us from reading large portions of Scripture without interruption. … We miss out on the flow of the argument, the arc of the story, and the broader context of individual verses.”

The Reader’s Bible, though, is formatted like a novel. Without verse numbers or footnotes, it’s not good for study or classroom use, but it’s perfect for drawing readers into the greatest story ever told. For other purposes the ESV Study Bible is good, and another Crossway product, The Gospel Transformation Bible, has notes that emphasize how the gospel pervades all of Scripture. King James advocates now have an excellent Reformation Heritage KJV Study Bible (Reformation Heritage, 2014), shepherded into print by general editor Joel Beeke.

I like the titles of two 2015 easy-reading books that lightly make good points: Jeff Anderson’s Divine Applause (Multnomah) and JR Vassar’s Glory Hunger (Crossway). We are sinful actors on a broken stage, and we have to decide whether we want glory for ourselves or for the Playwright.

For those who want to go deep, the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (Zondervan, second edition, 2014), is excellent. Editor Moisés Silva, who turns 70 this year, taught for most of his professorial career at Westminster Theological Seminary, and this five-volume work is a crowning achievement that will help the diligent to avoid error.

One example is commentary on the first word in the dictionary, abba, father: “It is an exaggeration, and somewhat misleading, to say that the word [abba] has a childish character and is equivalent to Eng. daddy.” Adult Jewish sons and daughters commonly used the respectful word when addressing their fathers but not God, so it’s striking that Paul urged the Romans and Galatians to do what was unusual.

Another common error concerns the word koinos, common, as in the Acts 2 declaration that the early believers in Jerusalem had “all things in common.” Some have turned that into an endorsement of communism, but the Dictionary explanation emphasizes “the continuation of private earning and the voluntary character of sacrifice and giving to the needy. There is no hint of either communal production or communal consumption.”

Short stops

N.T. Wright’s Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good (HarperOne, 2015) explains well that “the kingdoms of the world run on violence. The kingdom of God, Jesus declared, runs on love.” That was a hard swallow for the ancients who needed to accept two “big claims: first, that the Jews were right all along; second, that God raised Jesus from the dead.”

Wright points out that Jews accepting resurrection reality had to change their thinking radically: “Jews were the only people in the ancient world who believed that God would eventually raise the dead, [but] the resurrection they expected was something God would do for all his people at the very end, not for one person in advance of the rest. … Lots of other Jewish leaders were killed by the authorities within two hundred years to either side of Jesus. People sometimes said of such unfortunate heroes that they would be raised from the dead. They never said that they had been already.”

Sometimes Wright succumbs to the tendency to proclaim a new thing in evangelical understanding, and that’s not good news, but he can be effective with those socialized to despise Christianity. David Marshall’s How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test (Kuai Mu Press, 2015) is also a good book to give those who have imbibed anti-Christian views in school or via media.

Itzhak Shapira’s The Return of the Kosher Pig: The Divine Messiah in Jewish Thought (Lederer Books, 2013) is good to give Talmudic scholars who sense they are missing something from their studies. It takes all kinds of books to cut through different kinds of bias. —M.O.