BVoV
The Valley of Vision paperbacks arrived today. As one of the great classic books, it will make for a great journal. So the books will undergo the slice tomorrow to create the first known “Blank Valley of Vision.” As with the interlinear we will be making one extra (and it may end up in your mailbox for free) …
It is easy, I have found, to fall into a lull in preaching where I forget that souls are eternal and the body is quickly fading. Our country is in need especially of earnest preaching that reminds sinners every week that the temporal life will soon peel back like a stage background to reveal the eternal world (1 Cor. 7:31). Naturally the world and even Christians tend to think more about the temporal world than the eternal. This breads a host of problems and sinful thinking.
So back to John Angell James’ powerful book, An Earnest Ministry. This week we will look at the need of earnestness from the pulpit concerning specific topics of concern. I think it is especially important to note that James is not forgetting the Spirit’s work in all of this. He does not think earnest ministry alone saves and sanctifies. He understands earnest preaching as a type of serious preaching that the Spirit of God answers to and blesses (see pp. 190-191). Here then is the first reason that makes earnest preaching so needful: Worldliness.
“What can be sufficient but an intense devotedness on the part of ministers to make things unseen and eternal bear down the usurping power of things seen and temporal? Who but the man that knows how to deal with invisible realities, and to wield the powers of the world to come, can pluck the worldling from the whirlpool of earthly mindedness, which sucks down so many, or prevent the professing Christian from being drawn into it? If our own minds are not much impressed with the awful glories and terrors of eternity, we cannot speak of these things in such a manner as is likely to rescue our hearers from the ruinous fascinations of Mammon. How we seem to want a Baxter and a Doolittle; an Edwards and a Howe; a Whitefield and a Wesley, to break in with their thunder upon the money-loving, money-grasping spirit of this grossly utilitarian age!”
– John Angell James, An Earnest Ministry: The Want of the Times (Banner of Truth, 1847/1993) pp. 192-193.
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Ps. 73:25, ESV).
We cannot talk of Owen this week without hearing from him. A while back I found this excellent encouragement for preachers going into Sunday. Go deeper and deeper into Scripture. Go deeper than your sources. I’m certain he would say, ‘go deeper than John Owen’ …
“The joint consent of the fathers or ancient doctors of the church is also pretended as a rule of Scripture interpretation [in Roman Catholic interpretation]. But those who make this plea are apparently influenced by their supposed interest so to do. No man of ingenuity who hath ever read or considered them, or any of them, with attention and judgment, can abide by this pretense; for it is utterly impossible they should be an authentic rule unto others who so disagree among themselves, as they will be found to do, not, it may be, so much in articles of faith, as in their exposition of Scripture, which is the matter under consideration. About the former they express themselves diversely; in the latter they really differ, and that frequently. Those who seem most earnestly to press this dogma upon us are those of the church of Rome; and yet it is hard to find one learned man among them who hath undertaken to expound or write commentaries on the Scripture, but on all occasions he gives us the different senses, expositions, and interpretations of the fathers, of the same places and texts, and that where any difficulty occurs in a manner perpetually. But the pretense of the authoritative determination of the fathers in points of religion hath been so disproved, and the vanity of it so fully discovered, as that it is altogether needless farther to insist upon it. … Of those who designedly wrote comments and expositions on any part of the Scripture, Origen was the first, whose fooleries and mistakes, occasioned by the prepossession of his mind with platonical philosophy, confidence of his own great abilities (which, indeed, were singular and admirable), with the curiosity of a speculative mind, discouraged not others from endeavoring with more sobriety and better success to write entire expositions on some parts of the Scripture: such among the Greeks were Chrysostom, Theodoret, Aretine, Oecumenius, Theophylact; and among the Latins, Jerome, Ambrose, Austin, and others. These have been followed, used, improved, by others innumerable, in succeeding ages. Especially since the Reformation hath the work been carried on with general success, and to the great advantage of the church; yet hath it not proceeded so far but that the best, most useful, and profitable labor in the Lord’s vineyard, which any holy and learned man can engage himself in, is to endeavor the contribution of farther light in the opening and exposition of Scripture, or any part thereof.”
– John Owen (1678), Works 4:227-228
“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” (Acts 17:16, NIV)
“His spirit was troubled and yet just a few verses later he walks into the Areopagus and proclaims the Gospel using the culture from which he came into and from which he was troubled. I think we need to have a troubled relationship with culture. It doesn’t mean – that because cultural relevance matters – that we just adapt culture without forethought or discernment. I think culture should disturb us. And the problem is that for many of us is that we are only disturbed by other people’s culture. I think there is part of our culture that should disturb us. There are sins and idols and hindrances and strongholds in our culture that ought to deeply concern us. So Paul’s spirit was troubled within him when he saw the city was full of idols … [But] context matters. The how of ministry is frequently determined by the who, and the when, and the where of ministry … If you are going to get the culture then part of the culture needs to trouble you. I’m concerned that for many right now in some emerging church circles that they are more troubled by the Gospel than they are by their culture. Brothers and sisters, I think we need to get troubled by the culture and rely on the Gospel.”
– Ed Stetzer, from the third session of The Resurgence conference titled Breaking the Missional Code.
NEWS: The Shepherd’s Scrapbook blog today ranks as the 50th hottest WordPress.com blog on the Internet. Thank you to my high-speed Puritan friends. That means a lot of people will come to check us out who do not know Christ personally. May I invite you to please read the book of Romans online this weekend? And please consider reading this free book on God’s invitation of a personal relationship with Himself. Salvation offered to you free of charge — by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone! What grace — what beauty — that God would die for me!
UPDATE 4:45 PM: What an awesome day. Thank you everyone who stopped by. Set a new TSS record with 1,170 hits today. I will be on the road this weekend and into next week. But I will probably be blogging from Minneapolis. See if we can’t get this blank interlinear done. Steve, waiting for the VoV. That will be fun. Speaking of Steve, everyone who took advantage of the incredible offer from Banner of Truth on the John Owen volumes this week, head over to his blog and leave a comment of thanks. It was his gracious and generous offer. No publisher is more generous than the Banner of Truth. Have a great weekend and Lord’s Day. Christ is so precious!
DIY: Blank Bible (part 2) Cut, Rip, Clamp, Saw
“Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent
man, competent in the Scriptures.” (Acts 18:24)
So you are standing there, your arms criss-crossed over your precious bible pressed against your bosom looking at the cold table saw as if it were a monster about to eat your child. I’ve been there.
Deciding to take apart a precious bible (or a new one you spend good money on) is a difficult decision. But if you are faithful to go through these eight simple steps, you will produce a very useful tool in your pursuit of being “competent in the Scriptures.”
Let’s get it started…
1. Cutting
Like I said, for our purposes we are using the ESV English-Greek Reverse Interlinear New Testament.
Since it’s a hardcover we will need to cut the cover off first. Using the utility knife, find where the boards are connected to the book pages, usually in the crease of the front and back cover. With the knife, simply cut down the crease. The boards (hard covers) should come off after this cut.
2. Ripping
Once the cover is off, you will be holding a brick of paper, still bound together on the spine. Put the cover aside or throw it away (it will not be needed from here out).
I have noticed (especially with Crossway bibles) there is a layer of glue on the spine you can rip off by
hand. This will make the cut much easier and you will have less glue stuck to your table saw blade.
Here is what it looks like once you have the cover cut off and some of the binding ripped off …
Options
Here is where you can take two different options. The most daring (but the most fun) is to get the table saw ready. The second option is to take this brick of paper to the local office supply store to have the binding cut off. (I first recommended people not do this because I once had an NAS-NIV interlinear mangled by one of the Kinko’s cutters. Because the binding holds it’s not like cutting a ream of paper, but can actually bind and stair-step cut the book.)
Since the first series of posts on the “Jonathan Edwards Blank Bible” I have been assured by those in the field that if the book is clamped tight enough you can cut the binding off very cleanly with a paper cutter knife. So that is one option I give to you.
But for the rest of you, put on the safety glasses and head out to the garage.
3. Clamping
Critical in cutting the binding off is clamping the bible tightly. I use two boards (one on top and one on the bottom) screwed together to sandwich the bible. I use plywood that is cut a little larger than the bible itself. The boards and the loose side of the pages should all be lined up flush against the guide on
the table saw. I used one screw to hold the leading edge of the pywood and bible together while holding the back end down as I sawed.
[Note: on paperback books, as I will show you in the future, you leave the binding on and just use a board on the bottom side of the book you are cutting.]
This clamping ensures the bible is tight. If the bible is not firmly fastened, the blade can really mangle the biding edge. And secondly, having the bible clamped is useful when you are transitioning from a one-piece bible to 600 individual sheets of paper.
4. Sawing
Now we are ready to cut (insert Tim “The Toolman” Taylor grunting here).
Make sure you have a new blade because the sharper the better.
Line the guide on the saw to remove roughly 1/8” – 1/4” of the binding edge. I set the blade high enough to cut through both the top and bottom boards. Slowly, run the clamped bible through the saw until all the way through.
Don’t take the clamp off yet. First, check to make certain you have all your fingers and then look at the binding.
Look at this picture (to the left) of one of the bibles I cut. Something is wrong.
Can you see where part of the binding edge of the bible is white and part is yellow? The white part is where the binding glue has been removed but the yellow is existing glue. Trust me, you want to get rid of the glue now, otherwise you will be pulling each page apart in the future (and this is no fun). Simply set the saw guide to take off another 1/8” and check again.
When the binding is white, the pages will be loose.
There may be some slight roughness to the cut binding but that’s okay. All that will be inside the binding coil.
Take the clamp off the bible (making sure you don’t drop the loose pages) and you are ready for steps 5 and 6…
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Coming up next … DIY: Blank Bible (part 3) Slicing and stuffing
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Tony Reinke 