As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“Interlacing representative, essential, mostly brief passages from Confessions with a breezy but incisive ongoing commentary… Dr. Kreeft navigates us through the mind of a man who, in changing his own world, helped lay the foundations for our own.” - Imaginative Conservative
“Before you start complaining, be sure you’ve checked arrogance at the door. Come with your pain, not your pride.” - Ref21
There are many books on Christian worship: some helpful and some not-so-helpful. Nicolas Alford’s Doxology: How Worship Works clearly belongs in the former category. Though affirming the broader sense of worship (as a way of life), the book intentionally focuses on congregational worship. Alford is preeminently concerned that God’s people worship by the Book. Drawing from the Reformed tradition, he concisely expounds and carefully applies the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW), which, in essence, is the doctrine of sola Scriptura applied to church life and ministry.
But Alford does more—which is what makes this book superior to many others. First, he prefaces the the major principles that should govern our worship with a chapter that distinguishes between authority and influences. The Bible is the ultimate authority for worship. Nevertheless, there are other considerations that may and, in some cases, should affect the way we understand and apply the Bible. Alford defines and explains these influences in the following order of priority: Confessional/Convictional, Traditional/Cultural, and Preference/Deference.
Second, Alford identifies seven prefatory principles that we must employ as we seek to order our worship aright: the Biblical, Trinitarian, Covenantal, Ecclesiastical, Sabbatic, Governing, and Commissioned principles. These are Scriptural vantage points or perspectives from which we can ascertain the biblical contours of worship more clearly.
“In The Return of the Kingdom: A Biblical Theology of God’s Reign, Stephen G. Dempster… invites us to explore the grand narrative of God’s sovereign rule over a kingdom that has been unfolding since the beginning of time and that will continue long after the political landscapes of our age have faded.” - TGC
“Beyond its exploration of the past, Religion & Republic offers Protestants—and indeed any religious citizens—an option for civic engagement that avoids the extremes of apolitical submission and full-spectrum aggression.” - Acton
“…the principle of separation is a core biblical truth. We must grapple with the biblical data and its implications for ministry—and we must do it honestly and faithfully in every generation. I still believe that Pickering’s book is the most reasonable place to start that conversation.” - P&D
“Lewis and Keller wrote to skeptics…. But Ortlund’s audience is different. Rather than skeptics, he addresses Protestants who feel confused and are questioning not God or Christianity but Protestantism” - TGC
Matthew Through Old Testament Eyes, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2024, 389 pages, paperback.
I have already reviewed the previous volumes from this series. All three were what I would call average to above average works, containing useful content, although my repeated refrain was that in my opinion they fail to live up to the title. If you want to write a NT commentary “through OT Eyes” then you really can’t superimpose the NT on it. At least you can’t unless what you meant to say was something like “How the NT Book of _____ Reads the OT.”
“Principle two seems to be the most important as it is interwoven throughout many (if not all) of the others. Naselli identifies three separate types of reading: surveying, macro-reading, and micro-reading.” - DBTS Blog
“Sean McGever’s Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield seeks to shed light on this complex subject, focusing on three of American evangelicalism’s three most influential figures” - Providence
Discussion