• Evangelical Theology: An Introduction © 1963
• Eerdmans
• 206 pages

Here’s my first encounter with Karl Barth: I was asked to present a three minute profile of the man to my class in Bible College. I went to the library’s theological dictionary, thinking to find a one or two column profile I could regurgitate in class. It was then that I knew I was out of my league.

Since then I’ve always wanted to read him. He’s touted (for good reason) as one of if not the most influential theologian of the twentieth century. Still, every time I think about buying his Church Dogmatics, I get a nervous flutter in my stomach. 9,000 pages is a serious commitment. Enter: Evangelical Theology.

Near the end of his career, Karl Barth toured the United States and offered a series of seventeen lectures on what constitutes true Evangelical Theology. This book is the text of those lectures. It provided me with a good grasp of the way he thinks without having to wade through the details of theological battles fought in the mid-1900s.

Barth is everything I hoped he would be. His passion shines through on every page. His writing is full of pithy quotable sentences worth spending time thinking about. Most of all, he views theology as a high calling—an important science.

For years I’ve encouraged anyone entering theological study to read Hulmut Thielike’s A Little Exercise for Young Theologians. I now have two books to recommend.

• The Theology of Paul the Apostle © 1998
• Eerdmans
• xxxvi+808 pages

James Dunn has spent over four decades with Paul on his mind. He’s produced commentaries on his letters and been one of the pioneers of the New Perspective on Paul. When you read The Theology of Paul the Apostle, his experience and knowledge of the topic comes through on every lucid page.

Theologies of Paul are difficult precisely because all of Paul’s letters were occasional. Even so, Romans was written at a time in his life where he was finishing up a major section of his missionary work and preparing to embark on another journey. This letter is the most systematic of his letters, so Dunn used it as a template to explore his thought. Galatians and Corinthians also make frequent appearances as his major concepts are fleshed out.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll know that I have spent a lot of time digesting this book. I’ve benefited immensely by summarizing each of the 25 chapters. Here are some of the key areas I’ve benefited from while interacting with this book:

New Perspective. I always had a bit of a fuzzy understanding of what the whole New Perspective on Paul actually meant. Now that I’ve read one of the leaders in the New Perspective discuss Paul’s relationship with Judaism in detail, it’s starting to become clearer.

Salvation. I love how Dunn divides the topic of salvation up into two: the beginning and the process of salvation. Naming it “the process of salvation” instead of sanctification clarifies Paul’s understanding of “being saved.” It also makes more sense of the eschatological tension (more on that later). The other element that struck me was the sheer number of metaphors Paul used to describe salvation. Having been trained up with forensics on the brain, this chapter really expanded my thinking.

Anthropology. Hearing Paul’s use of sōma, sarx, nous, kardia, psyche, and pneuma described so precisely does a lot to combat the Trichotomist sandwich that has been a staple of the Western church.

Paul and Jesus. I had never really considered why Paul quoted Jesus’ life and teaching so rarely until I read Dun’s explanation. Dunn not only presented the problem clearly, he provided logical explanations. Dunn’s exploration of all the areas where Paul’s teaching echoes Jesus was also helpful.

Eschatological Tension. Aside from the New Perspective, the emphasis on the eschatological tension is the biggest important concept in this Theology. The fact that we’re living in the already/not yet has implications in every area of theology—implications that Dunn spells out in detail. This eschatological tension if a very useful framework for understanding many of Paul’s more confusing concepts.

I could go on. These were the five most important areas for my theological growth, but I’m sure it will speak to you in different ways. I couldn’t recommend a serious theology book more enthusiastically to any student, pastor, or thoughtful Christian.

• Old Testament Theology © 1996
• Augsburg Fortress
• 318 pages

This book is a godsend for those of us who don’t live close to a theological library. Patrick Miller has collected 15 different articles Brueggemann has written for various theological journals between 1978 and 1990 and organized them loosely into two categories.

The first articles discuss theological method. Brueggemann interacts with the major figures in Old Testament studies from Von Rad to Terrien to Childs while pushing their insights to new heights. He spends a lot of time working out the implications of Childs’ canonical criticism. It’s next to impossible to summarize a collection of essays, but Bruggemann’s main thought is this: there’s no one thing at the core of the Old Testament: there a dialectic. You can call it “Structure Legitimization” meets “Embrace of Pain” or “Hurt” meets “Hope”. This is what gives Old Testament faith its vibrancy and drive.

The second category of articles are examples of his method worked out exegetically. He tackles Genesis, Samuel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah all in his distinctive voice.

Whether you agree with everything he has to say or not (and what thinking person ever agrees with everything someone else has to say?), Bruggemann has been a steadfast voice of Christ-centred Old Testament scholarship for decades. This set of essays was invigorating to read.

• Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence © 2004
• Brazos Press: Baker
• 252 pages

Hauerwas is always challenging and thought-provoking. This work on Bonhoeffer is no different.

In Performing the Faith, Hauerwas uses Bonhoeffer’s life to show how Christians can be creative in their practice of non-violence (of course, that’s an extremely reductive summary). Here are some examples of the sort of brilliance you’ll find:

No account of the Christian life is adequate that ignores the beauty of God’s creation as well as the beauty created in response to that creation we sometimes call art. (22)

Good performers of the Christian faith, like good musicians, are those who have refined the art of allowing themselves to be played by the work even as they perform it. (102)

The failure to live with humility, a failure common to Christian and non-Christian alike, results in a distorted understanding of the way things are. (127)

Insights, even about the human condition, are a dime a dozen. People seldom, and rightly so, are willing to risk their lives or even make a small sacrifice on the basis of an “insight.” (139)

I am a pacifist because I think nonviolence is the necessary condition for a politics not based on death. (201)

The most profound chapter in the book was his pacifist response to 9/11. For Hauerwas, the whole response to the terror attacks were derailed when President Bush first brought up the term “war”. That galvanized and misled the entire response to date.

I do have one major frustration with this book, though. It’s not about Bonhoeffer, and it’s not one logical unit. It’s a collection of essays of various levels of academic writing around the theme of non-violence. Bonhoeffer, whose picture and name grace the cover of the book, is only given a two-part essay comprising 39 pages.

Once you understand that, you can give your mind and heart a work-out with these incisive essays.

• Colossians and Philemon © 1986
• Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
• Eerdmans
• 192 pages

Long before the massive Christian Origins and the Question of God, long before “The Right Reverend Father in God, by Divine Providence Lord Bishop of Durham”, we had N. T. Wright, Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey. While some the later themes of Wright’s theology are not fully developed by the time he penned this commentary, his lucid way of writing along with his detail-oriented exegetical style makes this an excellent guide to two of Paul’s letters.

Wright’s goal in this small commentary is twofold:

1. “To clear up potential ambiguities or obscurities, so that the reader is able to hear, as nearly as possible, what the text itself says” (10).
2. “To open the reader’s eyes to see the text, and those parts of Paul’s thought which it reflects, as a whole, over and above the mass of detail” (10).

He accomplishes both of these goals in a small sub-two-hundred page package.

About a year ago, I preached through the entire book of Colossians, and this commentary was a tremendous help. Anyone who is serious about reading scripture can enjoy this book—no special training required.

• Interpreting Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Thought © 2008
• Regent College Publishing
• 345 pages

Interpreting Martin Luther is a seminary course converted into a book. Each of the twelve chapters correspond to the twelve classroom lectures in the semester. Having taken the course from the author a little less than a decade ago, I was surprised at just how much of this course has stuck with me.

Shepherd eases you into the life of Luther, first dealing with all the background issues that swirl around the Reformation: the Renaissance, Humanism, Scholasticism, and other movements. When he gets down to Luther himself, the chapters cover nine aspects of his life and teaching such as that core issue of the Reformation, The Righteousness of God. He never does abandon important background issues, though. The chapter on The Lord’s Supper is a good example. By the time you’re finished, you’ll understand not only Luther’s view, but Calvin, Zwingli, and the Roman view as well.

What sets this book apart are the telling little anecdotes from Luther’s life, paired with a few pregnant reflections on the current state of the church. For instance, Luther’s graphic vision of the devil covered in human excrement is strong medicine for a church who loves to flirt with sin.

All of Luther’s source material for these lectures can be found in Lull’s Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings. If you’re serious about learning Luther, it’s worth reading these two books together.

I can’t think of a better overview of Luther’s life and teaching than these converted lectures.

• Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright © 2011
• IVP Academic
• 294 pages

It had to be awkward. The good theologians at Wheaton College threw a Theology Conference based solely on the theology of N. T. Wright, and invited him to come and respond. Wright handled the situation with aplomb, though, challenging misunderstandings of his theology, agreeing where there was more work to be done, and even getting excited about new connections previously unseen.

This book is the result of that 2010 conference. Half is about Jesus, the other half about Paul. Each half contains papers written by various theologians, each one briefly responded to by Wright. Then, at the end of each major section, Wright wrote a new paper about the current state of Jesus and Pauline studies.

Any book with this many contributors is bound to be a mixed bag, and that’s certainly the case here. Some contributors reminded me of that guy in the lecture that insisted on asking questions solely to demonstrate his own wisdom. So be it. Over all, the papers were stimulating, thoughtful, and readable—in the spirit of Wright’s style of doing theology.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the book was the last paper by Wright on the state of Pauline studies. As you may know, Wright is in the process of writing book four in his Christian Origins and the Question of God series on Paul. By the sounds of it, he has chosen to start with Philemon and ecclesiology, topics usually found closer to the appendix of a Pauline theology.

These papers, by their nature, assume a basic understanding of Wright’s theology. They are excellent reading for anyone who has studied N. T. Wright’s work.

• With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology © 2001
• Brazos: Baker
• 249 pages

It’s been a couple days since I finished reading Hauerwas’ Gifford Lectures and a couple things have happened:

1. My brain has stopped throbbing.
2. The issues he dealt with are becoming clearer.

In With the Grain of the Universe (a direct quotation from one of his chief dialogue partners, John Howard Yoder), Hauerwas subverts the original intent of the Gifford Lectures. The lecture series was set up to discuss Natural Theology, defined by the Gifford website as “the part of theology that does not depend on revelation.” Hauerwas spends eight lectures arguing that there is no theology that can be divorced from revelation. A bold move to be sure, but not unexpected given his reputation!

As a way of showing that natural theology cannot be divorced from revelation and witness, Hauerwas allotted the core of his lectures to the lives of three former Gifford speakers: William James, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Karl Barth. Most people, when confronted with such a list, would lump Niebuhr and Barth together while leaving the lone atheist out. Not Hauerwas—he saw a deeper affinity and capitulation to modernist culture between James and Niebuhr, leaving Barth to be the hero of the lectures. Where the first two understand man to be the fundamental subject of theology, Barthian theology places God at the centre.

Barth never understood any sort of “natural theology” apart from revelation. The Christian God is not first approached by logic and then revealed in full. His self-revelation is always first. God as Trinity is not a later add-on to the faith, but the fundamental core which can only be understood by revelation.

In the last lecture, Hauerwas placed another unlikely trio of characters together to demonstrate Christian witness: John Howard Yoder, Pope John Paul II, and Dorothy Day. Lives like theirs are the truest testimony to God. Lives like theirs are lived with the grain of the universe.

This book was a mental workout. Hauerwas is lucid and direct, but the copious amounts of footnotes (often 1/3 to 1/2 of each page) was a challenge to take in. I think it would be helpful to read the lectures a second time now, ignoring the footnotes, to follow the fundamental argument more closely. The other challenge was reading lectures which presupposed significant knowledge of the lives of James, Niebuhr, and Barth. I admit, my knowledge is lacking in that area. This book had the bonus effect of fleshing out those theologians in my mind.

With the Grain of the Universe is an important challenge to the presumptions of modernity (and post-modernity). It will help you understand the nature of revelation and the necessity of witness.

• The First Book of Samuel (New International Commentary on the Old Testament) © 2007
• Eerdmans
• 698 pages

Tsumura’s entry in Eerdman’s NICOT commentary series is strong. Here is where it’s most useful:

1. Ancient Hebrew: The core of this commentary is Tsumura’s ability to bring out the meaning of the original language. Interconnections within the text and play-on-words come to life in English under Tsumura’s hand.
2. Geography: There are many military exploits in 1 Samuel where the geography is taken for granted. Tsumura describes the relationship between towns and how the landscape would either benefit or imperil a military assault.
3. Modern Translation Discrepancies: If you read 1 Samuel in a variety of English translations, you discover a number of different interpretive options. This is especially noticeable in a small group setting, where each participant has their own favored translation at hand. More than most Old Testament books, there are a number of differences between the MT and the LXX, which in turn leads to a plethora of English interpretations. Tsumura’s an expert guide at navigating the MT and LXX options.

My only real issue with Tsumura’s book was his lack of narrative perspective. The significance and theological implications of many events were passed over quite quickly. If you’re looking to wrestle with the implications of the narrative, read Brueggemann’s First and Second Samuel from the Interpretation commentary series alongside the NICOT offering. (Conversely, Brueggemann passes over a lot of the technical information that Tsumura has mastered.)

David Tsumura’s commentary is an excellent resource for any pastor or serious parishioner who wants to dive deeply into the Samuel, Saul, and David stories.

• Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship © 1995
• Eerdmans
• 105 pages

Proper Confidence is the fruit of a lifetime. Lesslie Newbigin’s bio blurb describes him as “an internationally esteemed British missionary, pastor, apologist, theologian, and ecumenical statesman.” In this book, published three years before his death, he described his vision of true apologetics. Proper confidence cannot be found by imposing modern or even post-modern methods of inquiry on the question of God. No, we need to question the very worldview that informs our lives to find our way home. No doubt, Newbigin’s lifetime of cross-cultural experiences gave him the perspective required to criticize and to transcend his own cultural presuppositions.

It’s difficult to summarize Newbigin’s argument since, at 105 pages, it’s already quite dense. Nonetheless, here’s what I understand as the core of his book: We find God and our confidence in his reality as we commit to following him. A good analogy is the relationship between husband and wife. You can learn a lot about your spouse by observing him or her from a distance—but you can not truly know the other person. True knowledge of the other only comes in relationship.

Newbigin doesn’t waste any words here. Each chapter is pregnant with insight. Our worldviews are so deeply inset, this book is an antidote worth reading and rereading. This was my first foray into Newbigin’s corpus. It will not be my last.