Verbal Aspect & all that jazz in Biblical Greek

Con Campbell’s new book, Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek, is now available.

He recently wrote several blog posts on it at Zondervan’s Koinonia blog: part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5

Here’s a list of scholars endorsing the book.
(Thanks to Justin Taylor.)

Robert Gagnon on Homosexuality and the Bible

In this 28 minute video from Pure Passion, Robert Gagnon answers some common objections about homosexuality and the Bible. Very helpful.

Watch it on Vimeo via Between Two Worlds.

Lambeth 2008 – a retrospect

“… The most blatant example of TEC’s attempt to influence the conference occurred in the Lambeth Witness, published by Integrity USA, which as the only daily publication on campus, was often mistaken to be the official Lambeth Daily, which had no paper edition in 2008. In the Lambeth Witness, Bishop Catherine Roskam from TEC suggested that statistically at least some of the bishops at the conference were wife-beaters, and that there were incidences of wife-beating in some African nations. This was widely seen as an attempt to undermine the Sudanese and other Africans who had been outspoken on issues of sexuality…”

– Chris Sugden offers some insightful reflections on Lambeth 2008 – at Anglican Mainstream. Worth reading.

Gospel Coalition media archive

“The Gospel Coalition has recently revamped its website, and it now holds 8,480 audio files and 842 video files. This archive has very nice topic and speaker indexes, and categories of sermons, Q&A, conference messages and interviews. This is a motherload of materials.”

– Thanks to Faith by Hearing for the tip.

The Two ‘Courts’

“There are two ‘courts’ we must deal with: the court of God in Heaven and the court of conscience in our souls.

When we first trust in Christ for salvation, God’s court is forever satisfied. Never again will a charge of guilt be brought against us in Heaven. Our consciences, however, are continually pronouncing us guilty. That is the function of conscience. Therefore, we must by faith bring the verdict of conscience into line with the verdict of Heaven. We do this by agreeing with our conscience about our guilt, but then reminding it that our guilt has already been borne by Christ.”

– Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace. (With thanks to Of First Importance.)

What we do matters

One impact of Tractarianism has been that practices that had not happened in the Church of England for 300 years were reintroduced, tolerated, permitted and now in a few cases almost prescribed.

Although evangelicals at first opposed these things as springing from a different gospel, along the way many seem to have become numbed to them and even adopted the practices for themselves…

– Church Society General Secretary David Phillips writes on vestments, eucharistic practice, and international Anglicanism. (Direct link to PDF file, courtesy of Church Society.)

Praying for President-elect Obama

Well, my country and much of the rest of the world are electric with the election of Barack Obama as the new President of the United States of America. To say that it is historic, is a gross understatement.

Justin Taylor and Al Mohler, have both inspired some reflection on the question of how we as Christians –Bible-believing, Reformed, Christians– ought to pray for him, and I have freely borrowed many of their words and thoughts on this. But here are some ideas for leading our people to pray for our President-Elect. Barack Obama…

– At Reformation21, Ligon Duncan offers some initial thoughts on how Christians must pray.

(Photo: First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi. Hat tip: Justin Taylor.)

America has chosen a President

… Evangelical Christians face another challenge with the election of Sen. Obama, and a failure to rise to this challenge will bring disrepute upon the Gospel, as well as upon ourselves. There must be absolutely no denial of the legitimacy of President-Elect Obama’s election and no failure to accord this new President the respect and honour due to anyone elected to that high office. Failure in this responsibility is disobedience to a clear biblical command.…

– Al Mohler writes on the responsibilities ahead for Christian people after yesterday’s US election.

John Calvin – free audiobook

This month’s free audiobook from ChristianAudio is a reading of John Calvin’s “Of Prayer and The Christian Life”.

Use the code NOV2008 at the checkout.

The mp3 files are around 160MB – available free until the end of November.

Will Apple’s stance on ballot measure come back to haunt it?

Apple made headlines when it donated $100,000 to defeat a measure appearing on Tuesday’s California ballot that would ban gay marriage in the state.

But even more noteworthy than the size of Apple’s contribution was the promience given the decision—Apple posted a statement on its Hot News page outlining its opposition to Proposition 8…

– Macworld reports on Apple’s public stance on homosexual marriage in California.

Sobering words from Robert Gagnon

“If Obama is elected President this Tuesday he has made it a priority of his administration to pass legislation that will make war against Christians and persons of other religious convictions who believe that homosexual practice and abortion are immoral acts. Persecution will take many forms, as indicated by actions that have already taken place in parts of the United States, Canada, and Western Europe…”

– Sobering words from Robert A. J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary tonight’s election. (h/t Anglican Mainstream)

Can Conservative Evangelicals and Traditional Anglo-Catholics really work together?

In 2 Corinthians 6:14-16, the Apostle Paul asked some searching questions of believers who wanted to take their new-found freedom in Christ too far:

For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?

Right now, a lot of people are asking the same question about any possible cooperation between Conservative Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics over the issues of women bishops and, to a lesser but still significant extent, same-sex relationships and their effect on the global Anglican Communion…

– Conservative Evangelical John Richardson gave this Address to the Annual Meeting of the Lincoln branch of Forward in Faith yesterday.