give thanks!

No matter what language we are using (or studying) we should be giving thanks to the Lord!





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Romans commentaries

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At a weekly lunchtime study a few of us are going through Paul's epistle to the Romans. Though we should build upon our own reading and study of Romans, we will also find some commentaries helpful.   In choosing and keeping commentaries for each book of the Bible, I like to have at least one commentary in each of these categories: 1) exegetical, that is, focusing on the text in its original language; 2) expositional , which is a running commentary on the verses, both in meaning and application; and 3) devotional , relating more to the personal application of the biblical truths in that book of the Bible. Of course, some commentaries overlap these categories.  In the process of downsizing my own personal library (i.e., the physical books) over the last couple of years, I've been faced with choosing which commentaries to keep. On Romans, I have kept (and use) the following volumes:  Romans (Exegetical Commentary), by Thomas R. Schreiner (Baker Academic, 1998). Schrein...
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In one of our Bible studies, we're going through Paul's epistle to the Romans. We're in chapter seven, discussing what he means by no longer being under the Law. Here's a good quote from F. F. Bruce... "The tension which finds expression in Romans 7:14-25 is the tension necessarily set up when one lives 'between the times' – in two eons simultaneously. How can one who exists temporally in 'the present evil age' nevertheless enjoy deliverance from it and live here and now the life of the age to come? By the aid of the indwelling Spirit, who not only makes effective in the believer the saving benefits of Christ's passion but also secures to him in advance the blessings of the age to come."  "Paul goes on farther to show that the law in its stricter sense, as the embodiment of God's will, is upheld and fulfilled more adequately in the age of faith than was possible 'before faith came', when law kept the people of God 'unde...
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the aseity of God

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"...I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me..." (Isaiah 46:9)  "For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen." Romans 11:36) In a recent newsletter I wrote briefly about the aseity of God , that is, his self-existence and independence. This is the attribute we should begin with when we are thinking about what God is like. Theologian Herman Bavinck writes the following in his Reformed Dogmatics: When the church fathers, in their attempt to determine the nature of God's being, started with the name YHWH and described him as "Being," they had in mind not God's being apart from his attributes, but the total fullness of God's being as it exists and is revealed in his attributes. Hence, the being ascribed to God was not an abstraction but a living, infinitely rich, and concrete Being, a Supreme Being at once identical with supreme life, supreme truth, supreme wisdom, supreme love (...
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