Worldviews & Culture Archives - My Digital Seminary

Review: God Dwells Among Us by Beale & Kim

Explorers, mountain climbers, space expeditions. Mankind has a drive to reach the “unobtainable” and bring near the distant. Tragically, the most ambitious and important goal, that of reaching “God”, is truly unobtainable. That is, unless He Himself chooses to draw near to us, which is what our creator God, YHWH, truly desires to do, and this is climaxed in Jesus: God with us. But what else does Scripture reveal about YHWH’s desire to dwell with His people? And what role do we play? In God Dwells Among Us , Mitchell Kim and G. K. Beale have attempted something less ambitious, but ambitious nonetheless. They have a twofold goal: 1) to explore this theme of the unobtainable but near God from Genesis to Revelation in an approachable way, 2) by means of bringing near to us a book that would be otherwise unobtainable to many, Beale’s 458-page groundbreaking academic work The Temple and the Church’s Mission.

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June 8, 2015 / 1 Comment

Practices of Power #3 Church Discipline

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June 1, 2015 / 0 Comments

Practices of Power #2 Gospel-Preaching

As I mentioned in my introduction, I’m working through Robert Ewusie Moses’ book on Paul’s prescribed practices in regards to powers and principalities called Practices of Power. We discussed baptism in the previous post. Next, Moses tackles Paul’s Corinthian correspondence, highlighting Gospel preaching and church discipline as practices that affect one’s relationship to the powers. We will look at preaching in this post.

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May 25, 2015 / 3 Comments

Practices of Power #1 Baptism

As I mentioned in my introduction, I’m working through Robert Ewusie Moses’ book on Paul’s prescribed practices in regards to powers and principalities, Practices of Power. This is the first post and the first practice is baptism.

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May 18, 2015 / 1 Comment

Practices of Power: Introduction

Christ’s victory over the forces of darkness was a regrettably neglected topic in my own Christian heritage and I suspect that my experience is symptomatic of a larger trend in evangelicalism. It’s not necessarily the case that we disbelieve in spiritual beings (in fact, I suspect we talk more about them in Calvary Chapel circles than some others), it’s just that I hadn’t always put together all the pieces, particularly the significance of Jesus’ death, resurrection, ascension, and return as a story of victory. All this to say that when I saw Moses’ Practices of Power on the Fortress Press website, I knew I would need to check it out.

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August 14, 2014 / 1 Comment

Review: Powers of Darkness by Clinton Arnold

How often do you think about Satan and his allies? Are you quick to see his influence behind unfortunate and wicked events? Or do you prefer to rationalize everything around you as purely natural phenomena? The unfortunate reality is that for “far too long the Western church has given neither sufficient nor serious attention to this topic” (p11) of the Bible’s teaching on Satan and spiritual beings. There is a desperate need for Western Christians to wake up and realize that the powers of darkness are very real, and the Word has much to say about them. Clinton Arnold’s Powers of Darkness: Principalities & Powers in Paul’s Letters aims to fill this gap, by offering a “biblical perspective on demons, principalities and powers, and the nature of the church’s conflict with the powers of evil” (p15). By limiting himself to the letters of Paul, Arnold recognizes the inherent limitations of Powers of Darkness, but sees it as a “first installment” (p15) towards a biblical worldview on the powers.