Flotsam and jetsam (1/20)

• Peter Wallace comments on the future of preaching, as he observed it at the second annual National Festival of Young Preachers.

I have seen the future of preaching, and it’s a beautiful thing.

• Andy Naselli offers some interesting quotes from Carl Trueman’s new book The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

When Mark Noll declared that the scandal of the evangelical mind was that there was no mind, he meant to criticize the lack of cultural and theological engagement among evangelicals. I agree there is a scandal involving the evangelical mind, though I understand the problem in the exact opposite way. It is not that there is no mind, but rather that there is no evangelical.

• Russell Moore describes how he would explain the kingdom of God to a 15 year-old.

The kingdom of God, then, is the good news that the right rule of God, and the right rule of man—a rule our ancestors Adam and Eve lost—have come together in the right rule of one right God-man: Jesus of Nazareth. In his sin-resisting life, his wisdom-saturated teaching, his demon-exorcising power, his substitutionary, conquering death, and his justifying, victorious resurrection, Christ is king.

• Michael Jensen argues for an epistemology grounded in trust and the Gospel.

As Wittgenstein demonstrated, we cannot live, even at the level of everyday life, without trusting. And yet trust is a theologically ambivalent starting point for a theory of knowledge because of the persistent untrustworthiness of human beings after the Fall. Not only have the noetic effects of sin crippled our perceptions, they have given us reason to doubt the motives of others.

• Ben Witherington discusses the “two swords” in Luke 2:28, explaining that Jesus was not endorsing the use of weapons – even in self defense.

From a grammatical point, it seems clear that this is the right interpretation of vs. 38 which simply says in the Greek “he said to them ‘Enough’!”  It does not read “Two swords are enough”. What we have here is an idiomatic expression used to close off a discussion.

• Byron Smith points out a nice summary of the first lecture that Bruce McCormack has given in a series entitled “Abandoned by God: The Death of Christ in Systematic, Historical, and Exegetical Perspective.”

• Koinonia is giving away a copy of To Transform a City by Eric Swanson and Sam Williams.

• And, Mental Floss offers a list of Insurance Policies on 10 Famous Body Parts. My favorite is Gene Simmons’ tongue.

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