(This volume was probably originally published around 1914. About this series)

FOREWORD

There has been much unavoidable delay in connection with the issue of this volume of “THE FUNDAMENTALS,” Volume XI. This was occasioned by the very serious illness of the former Executive Secretary of “THE FUNDAMENTALS” Committee. This illness lasted for many months, only terminating in his death. He bore up very bravely and it was not thought wise to put the work in other hands lest he should be discouraged, feeling that there was no hope. Further delay was occasioned by the necessity of going over his manuscripts and papers and selecting such as had already been passed upon by the Committee for Volume XI and in passing upon other manuscripts in his possession. Read more about The Fundamentals -- Volume XI Foreward

Finally we have the third and final volume of the Kregel Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Psalms by Allen P. Ross, Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School. This one covers Psalms 90 through 150 and brings the complete set to three thousand pages. The first two volumes were outstanding. I have found that I turn to them first for exegetical and even homiletical material (alongside VanGemeren in the EBC).

Although this review is on Volume 3, I want to say something about the other volumes. Ross’s introduction in Volume 1 is a very helpful orientation to the Psalter, its forms, its themes, and its theology. As with his outstanding book on worship, Recalling the Hope of Glory, he concerns himself in these books with the Divine-human encounter. Take a look, for instance at Ross’s comments on Psalm 8 and Psalm 23 in the first volume, and Psalm 42 in the second, and see how Ross brings you into the context of the human author. The author is a Bible conservative. He is not interested in winning friends in the critical academy, although he is a first rate Old Testament scholar. Read more about Review: Allen Ross on the Psalms (Vol.3)

The goal of this book is “to put conscience back on your daily radar, to show from Scripture what God intended and did not intend [the] conscience to do, and to explain how your conscience works, how to care for it, and how not to damage it.”¹

Definition & Understanding

As their titles suggest, the first two chapters deal with defining the conscience. Chapter 1 defines the conscience as “your consciousness of what you believe is right and wrong.” Chapter 2 examines how the New Testament writers taught about conscience and develops a biblical understanding of the conscience from these data. Included in this is a definition of the “weak conscience”: an “uninformed moral consciousness.”² As we’ll see later, this is the first of two definitions given in this book, and this presents a dilemma.

Chapter 3 answers, “What Should You Do When Your Conscience Condemns You?” The answer is the gospel, for nothing but the grace of God in the atoning work of Jesus can free us from guilt. This applies to the lost man approaching the cross with his guilt and the long-time believer who must again and again return to God in confession and seek forgiveness. We must never allow our guilt to become a tool for the accuser to bring us to despair. Read more about Review - Conscience: What It Is, How to Train It, and Loving Those Who Differ (Part 1)

Science Versus Religion: a New Angle

The battle between Science and Religion has been presented to the wider public as a struggle between reason and superstition. In the present intellectual climate, where the ghosts of logical positivism have been far from exorcised from the corridors of scientific thinking, any countering of the reigning attitude is most welcome. The volume under review is an absorbing historical account of the way the words scientia and religio have been used through time, and how they have changed their meanings since about the middle of the 19th century. The book under review is scholarly yet readable, comprising six chapters, an epilogue, fifty plus pages of notes, and indices.

It may seem that a book-length study on two archaic words would scarcely qualify as a riveting read, still less that it would be of any relevance. But Peter Harrison, who is a distinguished historian of science at the University of Queensland in Australia, has managed to produce a study which does both things. The resultant work is a real contribution to the Science versus Religion debate; a debate that has been impacted to a large degree by its wrong understandings of the terminology. Read more about Review - The Territories of Science & Religion