I haven’t been good about blogging my books - the last entry was April ‘23 so here is a ‘since-then’ update. These are the books that I finished 2023 with:

(you can click to the title to jump to that review)

Beautiful Union - Joshua Ryan Butler
Does the Bible Support Same Sex Marriage - Preston Sprinkle
Gather - Tony Merida
Flood and Fury - Matthew J. Lynch
Why the Gospel - Matthew W. Bates (I’ll read anything he writes)
Revelation for the Rest of Us - Scott McKnight
A New Heaven and a New Earth - J. Richard Middleton
(continued to work through) The New Testament In It’s World - N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird (about 200 pages left)

This reading took me 10 months. That is just under a 200-page/month pace which is well short of my personal goal. I’m trying to get better! I’ll briefly discuss each below. Here is my read-next list:

(finish) The New Testament in its World - N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird
The Disciple Making Pastor - Bill Hull
The State of New Testament Studies - Ed. Scot McKnight & Nijay Gupta
Reckoning with Power - David E. Fitch
Jesus and the Powers - N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird
The Lost World of Scripture - John Walton and D. Brent Sandy

1

Beautiful Union - Joshua Ryan Butler. 2023

I read this book because I was preaching a series entitled “Asking For a Friend” where I tried to tackle the most honest and relevant questions that people in 2023 have about the Christian faith and the Bible. Not surprisingly, we spent a fair chunk of those Sundays discussing sexuality and gender. In one message specifically, we asked the questions: why did God make sex and why are Christians so worked up about it? Knowing this was on my preaching calendar, I decided to tackle this recent book by Butler, an apologist and pastor in Tempe Arizona.

Butler emphasizes the transcendental capability for sex to create “union” and places that capability in the context of God’s love for us and the potential for its fulfillment in our relationship with God and ultimate destiny in him. Part of his argument is “theologizing” sex - which is not novel, many authors have done this. The novel element of Butler’s book is his “sexualizing” of theology which in retrospect seems like a fair application of Newton’s third law. If theology informs how we understand sex, isn’t it also fair to observe how God designed sex for us and ask how sex informs theology?

let me show you a quote where Butler does this “sexualizing” of theology that had me blushing in my office on Tuesday morning:

This is a picture of the gospel. Christ arrives in salvation to be not only with his church but within his church. Christ gives himself to his beloved with extravagant generosity, showering his love upon us and imparting his very presence within us. Christ penetrates his church with the generative seed of his Word and the life-giving presence of his Spirit, which takes root within her and grows to bring new life into the world. (page 6)

and some more that stuck out from this book:

Here's the thing: The goal of sexual purity is not to make God love you; it's to reflect the purity of God's great love for you. It's not to manipulate God into giving you the spouse of your dreams but to reflect the beauty of the God who's given himself for you. The goal is not success; it's faithfulness. (page 114)
Do you wonder whether God feels skittish about sex? Whether he's bashful about your body, dismayed by your desire for intimacy and romance? No! God loves sex; he invented it. God created sex by his good pleasure, for our good pleasure. God designed sex to reveal his love in technicolor— his love for you.
You can have a sex-positive vision of your body and sexuality, without caving to the reductionistic visions of our culture (that may tout themselves as positive but end up becoming negative distortions of the icon in the long run). The love of God is the endgame of the icon, which you are invited to reflect in your embodied life.
God is pro-sex. He chose it as the providential instrument through which to create the human race. This instrument is part of a symphony that, when played properly, sings to his deeper heart for the world, belting out a melody that runs through the center of the universe ... God is love. (Page 167

It could have been 100 pages shorter, and (in my opinion) did not adequately highlight sex’s role as a covenant enaction ceremony but it was a faithful and enlightening and pretty fun read. I would recommend this book 6.5/10

2

Does The Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage - Preston Sprinkle. 2023

I read this book for nearly the same reason as the one above. Sprinkle is leading the field of those to a (traditional) Biblical view of Sexuality and Gender while simultaneously trying to find the most loving and gracious way to speak with those who do not.

The Book begins with a lesson on how to have a productive conversation with someone who you disagree with and a positive/assertive presentation of what marriage is in the Bible. The format for the remaining 80% of the book is Sprinkle responding to 21 assertions made by those who believe the Bible does* or may* support same-sex marriage. Sprinkle begins each response by finding something in his opponent’s assertion to affirm and agree with and then corrects these assertions exegetically in defense of the traditional view of marriage.

I loved the format of this book. I think it handled the subject faithfully and displayed a productive and gracious way to have these conversations. It would be an extremely handy tool for anyone who has a relationship with someone who does not have a (traditional) Biblical view of marriage, because the reader could look up each assertion being made by their friend/family member and see a gracious and faithful response. I would recommend this book 8/10

3

Gather - Tony Merida. 2023

This is a tiny little book (132 small pages) that is part of a “Love Your Church” series by Thegoodbook Company. I was - and still am - looking for a good handout book that I can give to people that explains why being part of a Church and going to Church is so important. I remember this book being just not very compelling - which is really its whole purpose. When I got done reading it, I did not think - wow, I’ve got to hand this out to people. A couple of areas where it fell short:

This book emphasized doing more than “just showing up” for Church. Which is a great challenge to offer, but not the one I was looking for. It overlooks that “just showing up” is actually in itself a very powerful testimony to the world and your brothers and sisters in that congregation. The people I would like to offer this book to are not the ones who are “just showing up” they are the ones who don’t show up. My disappointment in this instance is not that the book was bad, but that the author’s goals didn’t match what I was looking for and what I wish they were.
Merida’s treatment of the sacraments (a really compelling reason to ‘gather’ for Church) was extremely poor. This reason for gathering should have been a home run, instead, he turned it into a leg-out single. He - as so many evangelical leaders do - turns to a completely unbiblical perspective on the sacraments at the outset and speaks this well-worn phrase as though it had a chapter and verse reference behind it (I’d swear many of them actually think that it does) “the Lord’s Supper and Baptism are outward signs expressing inward grace and faith-filled commitment to the Lord.” (page 83) May God hasten the day when this thought - a devilish lovechild of platonism and enlightenment philosophy whose reductionism has sloppily trodden over the much fuller and majestic Biblical truth about the sacraments is stricken from our mouths and pens.

this book was not ‘bad’ but I would not recommend it; 5/10.

4

Flood and Fury - Matthew J. Lynch

This book examines the justice of God related to Biblical acts of mass violence like the flood and the conquest of Canaan. I read this book because I was preaching on the topic of theodicy, because there was a lot of anticipation for its release among authors I like, and because I personally wanted to understand the justice of God better, related to these events. I was extremely confident that it would be good because of the authors who recommended it, so much so that before reading a page I bought one for my good friend John and asked if he would read it together with me. I was very disappointed with this book. I found Lynch’s approach to resolving the tension of God’s justice in these instances to not be faithful to Scripture. The main objection that I have to the book generally is that textual deconstruction seems to be the primary ingredient that Lynch uses in his argument that God was just and loving in the Flood and conquest of Canaan. it generally reads like this ‘God isn’t a moral monster for doing these things, because the way that these events are portrayed by the Biblical author and understood by the modern audience is way worse than the event actually was historically.’

I’m not afraid of the deconstruction of the text. With caution, I’m willing to listen to those (like Lynch) who will point out that a global flood is a familiar ancient literary motif and that conquest accounts often hyperbolize the severity of violence applied and the totality of the destruction of a campaign. I too want to understand the nature of this Old Testament literature in its native form and think about it from within the world of the ancient (to whatever degree) authors and audience.

My objection comes from the clear pronouncement of God’s intention by God himself in both of the instances that this book deals with (the flood and the conquest of Canaan). No amount of deconstructural scrubbing will be able to clear that away and Lynch’s treatment of this core element is wanting to say the least.

I’m still looking for a great book on this topic. I would not recommend this one; 2/10

5

Why the Gospel - Matthew Bates

Bates is my favorite author currently. His book Salvation by Allegiance Alone is the most important work I’ve read in the last decade. i see his successive books (Gospel Allegiance, and Why the Gospel) as follow-up works to the monumentally important assertion he made in 2017.

The compelling question at the core of the book is: “Why is the gospel necessary?” / “What need did the Gospel fulfill?” I’ll dump some quotes here that will give you a pretty good idea of the answer he provides

According to Scripture, the gospel is not best captured by saying that Jesus is my Savior, the source of my regeneration, my righteousness, my atoning sacrifice, or my forgiveness. He is those things. But! The gospel is best summarized as Jesus is the Christ. (page 8)
Why the gospel? The gospel's clearest purpose in Scripture is bodily allegiance to King Jesus in every nation. (page 17)
Then, Paul reveals how God's saving actions-choosing and sanctifying the community-relate to the purpose of the gospel: "He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. 2:13, NIV). Again, the purpose of the gospel is that we might join in the glory. The choosing and sanctifying as part of the salvation process are not ends in themselves, but are purposed toward a greater end through the gospel: sharing in the glory of the Lord Jesus, the Christ. A fundamental purpose of the gospel is our glory-that is, our fame, honor, and good reputation. (page 37)
Thus, a better (more precise) way to answer the question posed by the Westminster Catechism would be as follows: Question: What is the chief end of man? Answer: God created humans in his image to rule creation on his behalf, so that creation could experience God's glory derivatively through local human rule. The end result is glory for creation, humans, and above all God. (page 64)

The excitement of the book wained a little at the end for me, but I’ve noticed that to be the format of Bate’s books. They begin with this very compelling and exciting assertion that he is establishing (that is the exciting part for me) and they end with a “now lets work this assertion out” and that part is just not as naturally exciting to me, it may be to others.

One small critique I’d offer to Bates comes in his treatment of the cry of dereliction on page 84. He is dealing with the way it has been marshaled to support the penal substitutionary model of atonement. He correctly raises the full content of Psalm 22 (from which Jesus is quoting), but I don’t think he goes far enough in incorporating Psalm 22 into our perception of what Jesus was experiencing on the cross because Bates still says:

On the cross the son felt abandoned. He expressed his agony with words from Psalm 22:1…”

Bates knows what the overall message of Psalm 22 is, he discusses it extensively after this quote. It is a pronouncement of the triumph of the afflicted servant of God and the Glory that will be brought to God through it - not just a potential triumph but an inevitable, inescapable “he has done it.” If we know this about Psalm 22, and we (with good reason) think that Jesus would also know this about Psalm 22, then why would Bates join the crowd in saying that Jesus felt abandoned? I actually messaged this question to Bates and he was gracious enough to respond, he raised some good points in favor of recognizing Jesus’ agony on the cross, but only pointed me towards further reading for the theme of abandonment which he and I do not see eye to eye on currently. I will do his homework before I complain any further. It’s an extremely minor detail to take issue with in this wonderful book; it would be akin to complaining about Cindy Crawford’s mole. I would recommend this book 8/10.

6

Revelation for the Rest of Us - Scott McKnight

I read this book because our Church was reading through Revelation together in the early winter of 2023. I really like the other McKnight stuff that I’ve read, and I liked this book too. This is not a commentary or survey of Revelation, instead, McKnight outlines a framework for reading Revelation well with eyes wide open to the popular misreadings that are driven by misunderstanding the genre, form, and characters of this text, Part 5 (of 5) in this book is called “Discipleship for Dissadants Today.” where Mcknight applies the teaching of Revelation to the modern American Church in a thoroughly political manner. I LOVED it, but I know that many of my peers and congregants would be resentful of McKnight’s insistence that America has no small share in the Babylon of Revelation and the implications that he draws from that truth. I don’t say that to excuse them from reading it. I would have them know that this would be an incredibly important book for them to consider. Here are some quotes

Speculation is the biggest problem in reading Revelation today. Many treat it as a databank of predictive prophecy - what one Revelation scholar, Christopher Rowland, calls "a repository of prophecies concerning the future." Readers want to know if now is the time of fulfillment for that symbol, figure, or event. Speculations about who is doing what, sometimes standing on stilts, has ruined Revelation for many. (page 3)
Apocalypses reveal to humans God's plan for the world. They inform readers that what they think is real is not as real as they think, that there is a deeper reality, that the world is not what it seems to be. And in reading, the unfathomable becomes clear. Many, in an attempt to clarify the deeper message, succumb to a desire to translate the images into specitic persons or events, but such hasty moves often work counter to the role our imagination is designed to play. This is because John collides the real world with the real-er world. (page 27)
Here is the only secret you need to reading Revelation: this book is about the Lamb's final, complete defeat of the dragon and its Babylons and the establishment of new Jerusalem. (Page 97)
John does not adjudicate how to engage in politics. Instead, John instructs Christians how to discern the moral character of governments and politicians and policies and laws. John takes the stance of a dissident disciple who lives out of a story unlike anything the world has to offer. (page 104)
One conquers by worshiping the One on the throne and the Lamb, and on the basis of such worship, becoming an allegiant witness, even in the face of opposition, suffering, and martyrdom. (page 161)
Christian leaders have sometimes failed us, contending that there is both a kingdom of this world and a kingdom of God, and we are to dwell in each. One is Babylon, and the other is new Jerusalem. We can't dwell in both. We call for a forthright dissident discipleship of allegiant witness. We have not sufficiently taught, preached, lived, and required the lordship of the Lamb over all. Instead, we have bowed down before the powers of Babylon, and the sycophantic preachers and pastors are leading the way. Fawning over an opportunity to be in the limelight, stirred by closeness to power, and excited about making America more Christian, these sycophantic leaders have led a nation away from the gospel. (page 238)

I loved this book, I’d recommend it to everyone 9/10

7

I started reading this book to prepare for a couple of sermons I was preaching on heaven and the afterlife. I remember seeing it referenced in a footnote of a previous book and adding it to my Amazon wish list, but I can’t remember what book that was.

Middleton makes a thorough case for understanding the future hope of the Christian faith to be a restored and renewed creation (i.e. earth) in which Christ rules. Maybe to some that seems like a fairly obvious point, but there is a huge (majority) share of modern believers who are operating under the assumption that their eternal destiny in Christ is otherworldly or nonworldly. for that reason, this book is an incredibly important corrective text, and Middleton seems to know it. The format of this book is more academic than anything else I read this year; sometimes the footnotes compete with the text for space on the page.

Don’t expect to start reading about eschatology propper on page 5 when you open this book. Middleton makes his (well-made) case by pointing to the whole story of creation, fall, and redemption, and he is very thorough about the early part of that story. It will not surprise the reader of this book that part of Middleton’s academic duties include teaching Old Testament. He spends much time establishing his argument in those texts and I - as a reader - experience a little dysphoria spending that much time there related to this subject, and found them to be a bit of a slog. But I survived those chapters and am better for it! In fact, this book will not read like any eschatology book you’ve read before because Middleton is pointing out that our heavenly hopes, and end-time models that include things like rapture, millennium, and Armageddon battles completely miss the point of the larger, controlling eschatological vision presented in scripture. If that sounds startling to you, then you have all the more reason to read this book.

This book has talked me into changing the way I talk about our eternal destiny. for years I have been crusading to tell people “Heaven is not where you go when you die - it’s where we will be when Jesus comes back to reign on earth” Middleton would likely applaud this effort, but points out that the Bible never uses the word “heaven” to describe that place. Heaven is where God and Jesus are currently. We should start calling our eternal destiny the “new creation” (which is a slight consolidation of “new heaven and new earth”) for clarity’s sake.

here are some important quotes from the book:

The Old Testament does not spiritualize salvation, but rather understands it as God's deliverance of people and land from all that destroys life and the consequent restoration of people and land to flourishing. (page 25)
Indeed, there is not one single reference in the entire biblical canon (Old and New Testaments) to heaven as the eternal destiny of the believer. Although this idea has a vastly important role in popular Christian imagination (and even in some theologies), not once does Scripture itself actually say that the righteous will live forever in heaven. (page 72)
This trajectory of God's presence among his people culminates in the New Testament's vision of a redeemed creation, with the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to earth, and at its center is God's throne (Rev. 21:1-22:5). Then the ancient promise will be finally fulfilled: "See, the home of God is with mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them" (Rev. 21:3). (page 90)
Hope of the resurrection is thus able to inspire believers to expect that God's original purposes for human life will ultimately come to fruition, despite what ‹ suffering we experience in the present. Paul's affirmation in Philippians 1:6 is apropos: "I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ." Resurrection is the ultimate completion of God's purposes. It is in God's purposes from creation that the unbreakable linkage between resurrection and the restoration of rule is forged. From the beginning, God's intent for human life was centered on the royal status of humanity and our commission to image our creator in loving and wise stewardship of the earth, which has been entrusted to our care (Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15; Ps. 8:48). (page 154)
But what are redeemed people to do in the new creation? Just as we have to get rid of the unbiblical idea of "going to heaven" as our final destiny, so we need to drop pious ideas of a perpetual worship service as our ultimate purpose in the eschaton. Whereas in Genesis 1 God made humans in his image to represent his rule by developing the earth, in Genesis 2 the human purpose was to work the garden, thereby extending God's presence throughout this world. It thus comes as no surprise that Revelation 21-22 portrays the renewal of the (original) fundamental human purpose in God's world. (page 174)

There was an objectionable portion of this book for me. I found Middleton’s treatment of the intermediate state to be very poor. for whatever reason he seems to want to dismiss the possibility of conscious existence between death and judgment day. His reading of 1st Thessalonians 4 is strained for this reason, and I do not think that he treats Luke 16 or Revelation 6 fairly. His argument against the intermediate state is a pretty transparent straw-man attack. He begins by addressing the texts where the intermediate state is only a possibility or an adjacent truth to the text itself (John 14, 2nd Cor. 5, Phil 1) explaining that these texts do not require* an intermediate state and then goes on to say on page 231 “if an interim state is not clearly taught in these three texts, we should be very careful in trying to derive such teaching from less clear texts.” But he’s got it exactly backward. All the good treatments of the intermediate state I’ve read LEAD with Luke 16 and Revelation 6. It really seems like an underhanded way to argue against the intermediate state. He never actually argues* for an alternative like soul sleep (he does propose* it) because you really can’t (assertively) from scripture - it can only be implied and other options argued against. Why reject the theory for which you find little Biblical evidence for the theory for which we have none?

Overall this was a good book. It may not be the right book for someone reading popular-level works. I would recommend it to a Bible college student/graduate. 7/10

End of 2023 Books