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Barrett’s Book Notes: Jesus Christ

With Good Friday and Easter nearly upon us, here are a few new books related to the person of Christ to read this Easter season.

9780801048692mBryan Chapell. Christ-Centered Sermons: Models of Redemptive Preaching. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013.

If you found Chapell’s Christ-Centered Preaching a helpful tool in thinking through sermon preparation and how to approach preaching, you will be interested in this companion volume. Talk about method is always important, but few things trump actually getting your hands dirty. That is what Chapell does here. He gives you an array of example sermons of “Christ-Centered” preaching. Here is what Dennis E. Johnson says of the book,

“It is no easy task to preach sermons that exposit a biblical text faithfully, rightly connect it to Christ, and address hearers’ deep needs for God’s radical grace, all while communicating clearly and vividly. A good beginning is to grasp key principles and practices to be applied in crafting such rich and relevant messages. But watching a gifted preacher in action turns sound theory into transformative coaching. This is what Bryan Chapell’s Christ-Centered Sermons offers to his fellow preachers. This collection is the next best thing to sitting across from Dr. Chapell in his pastoral study and hearing him talk through his process for composing sermons. If you have said to yourself, ‘Yes, I must preach Christ and his grace from every passage of Scripture, but how?’, these sermons and the strategic comments surrounding them point the way.”

9780830824168mRobert Letham. The Message of the Person of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2013.

Letham, who has made a significant contribution to the work of Christ, now has contributed a volume on the person of Christ as well. The book is organized into five parts:

Part 1: Christ promised

Part 2: Christ incarnate

Part 3: Christ crucified

Part 4: Christ risen

Part 5: Christ ascended

Each part looks at individual passages on the person of Christ. For example, part 4 examines:

The empty tomb (Matthew 28:1-15)

The resurrection appearances (Luke 24:13-49)

Paul on Christ’s resurrection (1 Corinthians 15)

Also, in light of the next book I am highlighting, you may be interested in Letham’s appendix: Did the church get it wrong? Who is Jesus Christ? From Nicaea (AD 325) to Constantinople II (AD 553).

RNS-EHRMAN-BOOK bMichael F. Bird, Craig A. Evans, Simon J. Gathercole, Charles E. Hill, and Chris Tilling. How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013.

This book is a serious and significant response to Bart Ehrman’s book, How Jesus Became God, which is an attack upon the historical, orthodox, Christian understanding of Jesus Christ is God. Ehrman argues that Jesus and his disciples did not teach this, but rather it was invented by the Church. This team of scholars argues that Ehrman gets it wrong.Here is the TOC:

The Story of Jesus as the Story of God, by Michael Bird

Of Gods, Angels, and Men, Michael Bird

Did Jesus Think He was God? Michael Bird

Getting the Burial Traditions and Evidences Right, Craig A. Evans

What Did the First Christians Think about Jesus? Simon Gathercole

Problems with Ehrman’s Interpretive Categories, Chris Tilling

Misreading Paul’s Christology: Problems with Ehrman’s Exegesis, Christ Tilling

An Exclusive Religion: Orthodoxy and Heresy, Inclusion and Exclusion, Charles Hill

Paradox Pushers and Persecutors?  Charles Hill

Concluding Thoughts, Michael Bird

Here is a video interview with Craig Evans that get to the heart of the matter.
 

Matthew Barrett (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at California Baptist University, as well as the founder and executive editor of Credo Magazine. Barrett is also Senior Pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church. He is the author and editor of several books, including Salvation by Grace: The Case for Effectual Calling and Regeneration. You can read about Barrett’s other publications at matthewmbarrett.com.

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