/ Gentle Reformation

Rambling Reviews of an Audio Scavenger

I love a full MP3 player.  And last week, my MP3 player was pretty darn full.  Ah, yes, the simple pleasures in life!

So, yeah, I’ve listened to quite a few messages lately.  It’s been a strange mixture.  A little bit of everything.  Nothing life changing, exactly, but no downright duds either.  It’s for this reason I’m going to go with the shotgun approach today.  Not a slug, but buckshot.  So here we go.  Time to ramble.

The Gospels as Historical Biography, The Gospels as History from Below and The Gospels as Micro-History and Perspectival History – Richard Bauckham

One of the dangers of presenting a scholarly lecture is boring your audience to death.  Now let’s be honest here.  Richard Bauckham’s recent lectures at SBTS are both scholarly and, yes, that’s right, boring… unless of course you’ve extremely interested in the subject matter.  But even then, you might want to down one of those 5-hours energy drinks.  Don’t misunderstand me, there are a few tasty nuggets here and there, but wading through ancient pagan texts in order to better classify the Gospel genre is a bit painful.

Lectures here: Link. Link. LinkLink.  And here’s the link to 5-hour energy drinks

Christianity and Liberalism Today – Michael Horton

Deistic.  Moralistic.  Therapeutic.  This is Horton’s diagnosis of pop American spirituality.  And he’s right.

Few are able to so ably exegete the spiritual climate of a nation as Horton.  It’s certainly a diagnosis you’ve heard before, but it’s a message delivered with such clarity and skill, it sings.  I thoroughly enjoyed this message.  Give it a go.

You can get it here: Link

Actually, his message was one of many at Westminster’s recent conference on Machen.  It was a good conference.  Some of the messages were a little “been there done that,” but on the whole, it was both informative and encouraging, not to mention invigorating.  I’ll go ahead and especially recommend Joel Kim’s message.  It was entitled “Machen and the Bible.”

http://wscal.edu/resource-center/category/conferences/P0

Douglas Moo on Eschatology and the Question of Ecology

I like a clean earth, in the same way that I like it when my neighbors wash their hair.  But I’m not a tree hugger.  And I don’t think global warming is the greatest threat facing mankind.

That being said, the issue of going green is important.  It deserves consideration.  Like I said, I don’t like smog and acres of parking lots.  But let’s not discuss the subject with foam dripping from our mouths either.

Thankfully, Dr. Moo is deliciously balanced in his approach.  Other than downplaying, in my opinion, Peter’s words in 2 Peter (maybe just a tad), I found myself nodding time and time again.  It was a good lecture.  Scholarly.  Clear.  A bit boring, perhaps, but relevant, and therefore of interest.  If you’ve ever wondered how a Christian might develop a biblical doctrine of ecology, this is the place to start.  It is a great model for us.

http://www.wheaton.edu/CACE/audiodownloads/07SCONMoo.mp3