Book Review: Keith Underhill, Planted by the Providence of God: The Story of Trinity Baptist Church, Nairobi

 

You can find a pdf of the written review here on my academia.edu page.

JTR

A very short book review: Dear Preacher, Letters on Preaching (2025)

 

From my X:

A very short book review: Dear Preacher, Letters on Preaching (2025).

I got this book in the mail over the weekend written by my friend Bryant Rueda.

The book is a series of 50 short, pithy, devotional essays (1-2 pages each in large font) presented as letters from an older preacher (PulpitTape) to his younger self, covering various topics (e.g., “Preaching as a Means of Grace,” “Preaching as Leadership,” “Preaching as Prayer,” etc.), liberally sprinkled with quotations from various preachers on the task of preaching (from Edmund Clowney to Al Martin to Fred Craddock, et al.).

Preachers might find it a helpful devotional read. One thing: When I read in the preface that the author was following the epistolary format of Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, I at first thought the voice of PreachTape was going to be a demon giving “anti-advice” for preaching, rather than a more angelic older self. That first thought might be a good idea for a sequel.

JTR

Book Review: W. Gary Crampton: From Paedobaptism to Credobaptism: A Study of the Westminster Confession and Infant Baptism

 

Dr. Crampton died last week on 7.17.24. I posted this video version of my review of his book which I recorded in 2011.

 

I also posted to my academia.edu page the written version of my review which appeared in the Reformed Baptist Trumpet, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2011):13-15. Read it here.

JTR

Book Review: Can We Recover the Text of the New Testament?

I've posted to my academia.edu page my written review of Can We Recover the Text of the New Testament?, which just came out in Puritan Reformed Journal (July 2024): 178-182. You can read it here.

Several months ago I also did a podcast version of the review:

JTR

Book Review: Valiant for the Truth, The Collected Writings of Bishop D. A. Thompson

I've posted to my academia.edu page my written review of Valiant for the Truth: The Collected Writings of Bishop D. A. Thompson, former editor of the BLQ, which just came out in Puritan Reformed Journal (July 2024): 182-185. You can read it here.

A couple months ago I also did this video version of the review:

JTR

Book Note: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Raising Children God's Way

 

About this book:

The author is D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981). He was a Welshman, a physician by training who was called into the ministry as a young man in 1927. From 1938 to 1968 he served as pastor of Westminster Chapel in London where he had a very influential ministry and drew large crowds to hear his expositional preaching series. Many of those sermons were published in various series. The Banner of Truth publishing ministry also began with the church at that time.

One of Lloyd-Jones’ most memorable sermon series was an exposition of the book of Ephesians (now published in 8 volumes by Banner of Truth). This booklet is taken from five sermons in that series taken from Lloyd-Jones exposition of Paul’s “household code” instructions regarding the relationship between children and parents (Ephesians 6:1-4) (in volume 6 of the series).

After a brief publisher’s introduction, there are five short and highly readable chapters in the book, one from each sermon.

This format would easily lend itself to a five-part book study series.

The five chapters:

First: Submissive Children (3-20);

Second: Unbelieving Parents (21-34);

Third: Discipline and the Modern Mind (35-52);

Fourth: Balanced Discipline (53-68);

Fifth: Godly Upbringing (69-85).

This booklet is not a pragmatic approach to parenting. It is not “parenting in a box.” It is not filled with “five ways to teach potty-training,” or “three ways to make your kids eat healthy” kinds of advice. On the other hand, it does, especially in the last couple of chapters provide some very practical exhortations about parenting and, most importantly, it lays a Scriptural and doctrinal basis for Christian parenting.

If you work through the book, you might find the first three chapters a bit slow, but if you are patient, you will be especially rewarded in the last two chapters.

A description of each chapter and a bit more about the last two:

The first chapter (Submissive Children) focuses on Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord.” It talks about the contemporary problems of disobedient children (Things haven’t changed that much since Lloyd-Jones wrote, and perhaps they’ve become even worse!). One of the key points is, “It is unnatural for children not to obey their parents” (11). He emphasizes that the child-parent relationship is to reflect the Christian’s relationship to God Himself (14).

The second chapter (Unbelieving Parents) addresses an interesting subject, namely, how are believing children to treat unbelieving parents. Lloyd-Jones writes, “The obedience required of the children must be yielded to every kind of parent” (22). In our study this chapter led to some good discussion among the adults, including some who came from non-Christian homes, as to what our duties are to our own parents.

The third chapter (Discipline and the Modern Mind), as the title indicates, addresses the discipline of children. Lloyd-Jones draws a contrast between a “Victorian” approach that sometimes lacked flexibility and charity and a “modern” approach which often tends toward an overly permissive attitude. He suggests the modern secular view fails, because it lacks a Christian understanding of atonement, redemption, and regeneration.

The fourth chapter (Balanced Discipline) follows up on the third chapter, based on Ephesians 6:4a, “fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.” It offers a series of seven practical (yet open) principles related to discipline:

First, “we are incapable of exercising true discipline unless we are able to exercise self-control” (56).

Second, in discipline a parent “must never be capricious” (57). We are not to be moody, unpredictable, changeable, and uncertain.

Third, “parents must never be unreasonable or unwilling to hear the child’s case” (58).

Fourth, “the parent must never be selfish” (59).

Sixth, “Discipline must never be too severe” (61).

Seventh, “We must never fail to recognize growth and development in the child” (62).

This chapter is a quote factory.

He summarizes his argument: “Discipline must always be exercised in love” (65).

“The child’s good is to be your controlling motive” (66).

“So you must look even at your own children primarily as souls, and not as you look at an animal that you happen to possess, or certain goods that you possess” (66).

“What if God dealt with us as we often do with our children!... There is nothing more amazing to me than the patience of God, and His longsuffering toward us” (67).

The fifth chapter (Godly Upbringing) focuses on Ephesians 6:4b: “but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Lloyd-Jones states, “When the child comes we must say to ourselves, we are the guardians and custodians of the soul” (70). Nurture refers to general care and admonition, especially, to our speech.

Four principles are presented:

First, nurture and admonition must be done in the home and by the parents. This duty cannot be handed over to the school. Some of the discussion here is directed to the “boarding school” system in the UK, but can be applied in any context. His main point is that the benefits of a good academic education should never outweigh the importance of parental spiritual nurture.

He even says, “We should be considering to what extent the system of boarding children away from home is responsible for the breakdown of morals in this country” (76). One wonders how this teaching was originally received. We might compare it today to a contemporary call for Christian families to leave public (government) schooling. He warns against the teaching of evolution and higher criticism of the Bible, adding, “The whole emphasis is anti-God, anti-Bible, anti-true Christianity, anti-miraculous, and anti-supernatural. Who is going to counter these trends?” (77).

Second, “Never be entirely negative and repressive” (79). Beware “a false Puritanism” (79).

Third, don’t make “little prigs and hypocrites” of your children (79).

Fourth, “we must never force a child to make a decision” (80).

More worthwhile quotes here:

“Christian parents must always remember that they are handling a life, a personality, a soul” (80).

“Do not bring pressure to bear on your children” (81).

“So our teaching must never be too direct, or too emotional” (81).

“Above all, there should be an atmosphere of love” (81).

Use “general conversation” in the home “conducted in Christian terms” (82).

The “Christian point of view must be brought into the whole of life” (82).

When questions are asked, parents “must not brush the child aside” (83).

“Then you can guide their reading” (84).

“What else? Be careful always, whenever you have a meal, to return thanks to God for it, and to ask his blessing upon it” (84).

“In other words to sum it all up: what we have to do is to make Christianity attractive…. We should create within them the desire to be like us” (84).

Conclusion:

So, in closing I commend this book to you for personal reading or for group study in your church. I think you will find it profitable whatever your station in life.

I think you will be blessed if you take up this book and read.

-JTR

Book Review: Geoffrey Thomas, In the Shadow of the Rock: An Autobiography

 

You can read the review here on academia.edu.

JTR

Book Review: H KAINH ΔIAΘHKH, The Greek New Testament: Textus Receptus, Reader’s Edition

 

You can read the written review here on my academia.edu page.

JTR

Book Review: John P. Thackway, Ed., Valiant for the Truth: The collected writings of Bishop D. A. Thompson

 

JTR

Book Review: Lanier & Ross, The Septuagint: What It Is and What It Matters

 

Read my written review on academia.edu.

JTR

Book Review: Joshua Schooping, Disillusioned: Why I Left the Eastern Orthodox Priesthood and Church

 

 

You can find a pdf of the review here on my academia.edu page.

JTR

Book Review Article: Steve McVey, Grace Walk

 

I have posted audio version of my 2004 review of Steve McVey's Grace Walk book above.

I have also posted the written review here at my academia.edu page.

JTR

Book Review by Robert Vaughn: Why I Preach From The Received Text

 

I have posted an audio version of Robert Vaughn's review of Why I Preach From The Received Text. The written review appeared in the Bible League Quarterly, No. 494 (July-September, 2023): 32-34. I have also posted a pdf of the written review to my academia.edu page. Read it here.

JTR 

Book Review: Geoffrey Thomas, Ernest C. Reisinger: A Biography

 

I have posted to my academia.edu page a previously unpublished review I wrote in 2005 of Geoffrey Thomas's Ernest C. Reisinger: A Biography (Banner of Truth, 2002). Audio versions are posted above.

You can find the written version here.

JTR

Book Review: Gregory A. Wills, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 1859-2009

I have posted to my academia.edu page the review I wrote in 2009 of Gregory A. Wills' history of my alma mater, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, released on the school's sequicentennial anniversary.

You can read my review here.

Interesting to read some of the questions I posed 14 years ago:

The book also raises a number of more speculative questions in my mind.  Here are a few to consider:  Was it a wholly positive move for Southern Baptists to establish centralized seminary education along the model of colleges, universities, and divinity schools?  What would the trajectory of the SBC had been like if theological education would have been left with Baptist colleges or with private tutelage under veteran pastors within local churches?  Although the dismissal of Toy from SBTS was a watershed, does his hiring and retention until protested by grassroots Southern Baptists give evidence of denominational diplomacy even among the founders (like Boyce and certainly Broadus)?  Does the desire to be engaged with secular scholarship in the academy even among the current theologically conservative faculty present the risk that future generations might also be tempted to compromise?  Is the Abstract of Principles robustly Calvinistic or confessional enough to maintain doctrinal fidelity at SBTS?

JTR  

Back2theWord Review of Why I Preach from the Received Text

JTR

Renihan Review: Riddle, Davidson, Clevenger, & Loomis

 

Here are my notes from the Presbyterion meeting (4.14.23):

Welcome to the 2023 Presbyterion

Welcome to the 2023 Presbyterion, the Spring Pastors’ Fraternal of the Reformed Baptist Fellowship of Virginia.

For our program today we decided to offer a selective review of James M. Renihan’s work, To the Judicious and Impartial Reader: A Contextual-Historical Exposition of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, Baptist Symbolics, Volume II (Cape Coral, Florida: Founders Press, 2022).

This work has already been welcomed and acknowledged as a landmark exposition of the Confession which will likely serve as an interpretive standard for decades to come among Reformed or Confessional Baptists.

Dr. Renihan serves as President of the International Reformed Baptist Seminary in Mansfield, Texas and previously directed the IRBS at Westminster Seminary in California.

Rather than attempt to review the entire book, four of us will today offer a brief review (c. 15 minutes, or as I like to call it, the time it takes to do a short introduction to the sermon!) of four different sections of the book, covering the exposition of five chapters in the Confession.

Jeff Riddle, Christ RBC: Confession ch. 1 on Scripture

 

Ryan Davidson, Grace Baptist Chapel: Confession ch. 22 on Worship and the Sabbath

 

Steve Clevenger, Covenant RBC: Confession 26 on Church Officers

 

Van Loomis, Redeeming Grace BC: Confession chs. 28-29 on Baptism

 

Introduction

 

Before, we move to look at the exposition of chapter one, let me make a couple of observations on the Introduction (1-20):

 

Renihan begins by noting that though we call this the 1689 Confession, “there is no extant evidence that the Confession was published in 1689. It seems to have acquired this designation because it was subscribed at the 1689 London General Assembly” (2).

 

He declares that locating this confession “as a species within the genus of Reformed theology is straightforward” (4). So, Reformed Baptists are reformed.

 

Further on he states, “The aim of this book is not primarily polemic but rather explanatory.” For Renihan the “key question is what did the Confession mean to its readers in its own context” (7).

 

He also tells us, “There are times when I must express my enthusiasm” (7).

 

Finally, he suggests the confession bears an “internal structure” and can be divided into “four main units” (11). It is a “woven document” which must be read “back and forth” (11).

 

Renihan’s outline:

 

Unit 1: First Principles (chs. 1-6).

 

Unit 2: The Covenant (chs. 7-20).

 

Unit 3: God-Centered Living: Freedom and Boundaries (chs. 21-30).

 

Unit 4: The World to Come (chs. 31-32).

 

Finally, at the end of each chapter Renihan incorporates devotional material. So, there is an emphasis on piety and doxology in this exposition.

 

Chapter 1: Of the Holy Scriptures

 

After an explanation and presentation of the Epistle or Preface to the Confession whose beginning supplies the book’s title (“To the Judicious and Impartial Reader”) (21-26), Renihan begins his exposition of chapter one (Unit One) (29-78).

 

Time will not allow today for a thorough review of the chapter, so I will just offer seven observations about or highlights from the exposition in this opening chapter.

 

First: Renihan acknowledges that by addressing Scripture in this opening chapter the confession follows “the traditional method of expressing theological loci” in Puritan confessions by beginning with Scripture as “the principium cognoscendi, the principle of knowing” (epistemology) (29).

 

Second: Renihan notes that the opening sentence in paragraph one “is not found in the WCF or Savoy and had been added by Baptists” (30). That sentence reads: “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience….” He gives three reasons why it was added: () polemics against Quakers; (2) polemics against RCC; and (3) polemics against paedobaptists.

 

Third: Renihan insists that the framers of the confession held a high view of the Scriptures as inerrant and infallible, contrary to interpretations of their Bibliology given by moderate SBC scholars of the past like William Lumpkin and James Leo Garrett, Jr. He even offers a quote from Keach in which Keach “advocates a dictation theory of inspiration,” as opposed to “the better concursive theory” (37).

 

Fourth: In his discussion of the confession’s emphasis on the insufficiency of natural (general) revelation in 1:1, Renihan notes that “this was a disputed point among seventeenth century Baptists” and offers an extended contrasting citation from the General Baptist Thomas Grantham’s work St. Paul’s Catechism (39-41). The wording of the Confession “refutes the doctrine of religious sincerity and the virtuous heathen. According to the Confession, there is no salvation apart from the grace of faith in Christ” (42).

 

Fifth: Renihan addresses the change of the wording in 1:6 from the WCF and the Savoy’s which affirms that the whole counsel of God is “either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequences may be deduced from Scripture” to the Baptist Confession’s wording that this counsel “is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture.” Renihan argues that the Particular Baptists did not explicitly deny the general concept of “good and necessary consequences” being deduced from Scripture. He even cites  a quotation from Nehemiah Coxe’s (in Vindiciae Veritatis) that appears explicitly to affirm it (55). The reason for the change, according to Renihan, was the Baptist framers' “logic in interpretation” as they made a distinction between necessary consequences and merely good consequences (55). He concludes, “They could accept necessary consequences as binding, but not good consequences” (56). So, they were trying to ground their theology more closely to Scripture and not to human reason alone (57).

 

Sixth: Also in his discussion of 1:6 Renihan draws on the distinctions made by Heiko Oberman between Tradition 1 (Scripture and its truths) and Tradition 2 (Scripture supplemented by church tradition) to suggests that the framers of the confession warmly affirmed sola Scriptura, and yet they were not “biblicists.” He writes, “They were not biblicists who required an explicit text for every doctrine; they were churchmen who viewed themselves as part of that long line of believers stretching back through the millennia” (60).

 

Seventh: Perhaps the most refreshing and insightful exposition of this chapter comes in Renihan’s treatment of 1:8. Under the influence of Richard Muller, he notes the distinction made by the framers between the autographs and the apographs. He approvingly cites Richard Brash’s observation that the framers saw a “‘practical univocity’ between the immediately inspired autographa and the providentially preserved apographa” (67). He paraphrases the view of William Bridge, a member of both the Westminster Assembly and the Savoy Synod, as saying, “We have the word of God in our texts. God has always preserved it” (69). With respect to translations, Renihan also draws upon Muller’s discussion of the Authoritas Divina Duplex, noting that the originals are authoritative in both matter (content) and form, while translations are authoritative only in matter (content) and not in form.

 

In closing, I think Renihan has provided our generation and ones to come an outstanding survey, analysis, and framework for understanding the Confession’s affirmation of Scripture as the preeminent authority for our doctrine and practice.

 

JTR

Review: David Pitman on Why I Preach from the Received Text

 

Thanks to Pastor David Pitman for sharing this audio version of his review and reflections on the book Why I Preach from the Received Text.

A written version of the review can also be read on his academia.edu page.

JTR

WM 264: Review: Lanier & Ross, The Septuagint: What It Is and Why It Matters

 

Notes:

This spoken-word review is based on a written draft of this book. Here is an outline for the abbreivated review content:

Gregory R. Lanier and William A. Ross, The Septuagint: What It Is and Why It Matters (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2021): 216 pp.

This book is co-written by New Testament (Lanier) and Old Testament (Ross) professors at Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando and Charlotte, respectively), and it comes out of an elective course they co-teach on the Septuagint. It provides a helpful review of basic facts about and an informed discussion of the influential ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint.

Review of Content:

Structurally, the book consists of two parts: Part 1 (chapters 1-4) answers, “What is the Septuagint?”; Part 2 (chapters 5-7) addresses, “Why does it matter?” The book concludes with an Appendix covering “Ten Key Questions about the Septuagint.”

Four Commendations:

First: The term "Septuagint" is confusing.

Second: To say that the "Septuagint" was "the pew Bible" of the early church is an "oversimplification."

Third: The Apocrypha is not part of the OT canon but can be read with edification to understand Jewish backgrounds for the NT.

Fourth: Quotations from the "Septuagint" in the NT do not mean that the entire "Septuagint" itself is inspired.

A Major Concern:

There is, however, at least one highly significant aspect of this study of the Septuagint that some confessional readers, in particular, might rightly question. This aspect is the authors’ contention that the Septuagint might be used to “reconstruct” the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, or, to use the language in their discussion regarding the framework of authority, that it bears at least some “normative” authority with respect to establishing the text of the Old Testament.

Closing Analysis:

First, this approach appears to clash with the classic Protestant view of the providential preservation of Scripture as outlined in Westminster Confession of Faith 1:8.

Second, this approach is at odds with a distinct tradition in Protestant scholasticism that rejected the use of the Septuagint and other ancient versions to “correct” the traditional text of the Hebrew Old Testament (see Owen and Turretin).

Third, this approach presents a view which many will perceive to be problematic with respect to its proposal of the Septuagint as holding some measure of normative authority for Christianity. 

JTR

WM 261: Review: Greek New Testament, Textus Receptus, Reader's Edition (2022)

 

JTR

Added to video description (1.4.23):

Note: It came to my attention after the review was posted that the TR Reader's Edition omits a "nu" in the spelling of the name "John" in the titles for the Gospel of John, 1-2-3 John, and Revelation. This is a matter of the table of contents and headlings alone and does not affect the text of the NT. Hopefully, this will be corrected in a later printings of the work.

You can order this book here: https://www.grangepress.com/