Who I Had Over For Coffee This Week

It isn’t that a bunch of intellects actually show up for coffee. I listen to them speak off the printed page. Books are stacked all around me at church and home and I turn from one to the other as though it was someone else’s turn to talk. During the sermons, I don’t tell you about all the influences during the week. It would be a distraction. But, I thought for this week (especially given the nature of the topic) you might benefit from knowing some of the people that I invited into my study.

Christopher J.H. Wright recently wrote a book called The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith. Wright is one of the most brilliant-living Old Testament scholars. Per the web, he is “an Irishman who lives in London, with his heart firmly planted in the Majority World! Chris, with his wonderful wife Liz alongside, has pastored a local parish church, taught at a top seminary in India, served as President of a key Christian college, and authored a dozen books. Chris also serves as Chair of the Lausanne Committee’s Theological Education Commission and as honorary president of the Tearfund in the UK.”

Tremper Longman III is an Old Testament professor at Westminster (Per Servicemaster, he is now at Westmont)  . Longman wrote, God is a Warrior and in the book, Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide. If you get really interested in the topic of this sermon, then you will want to read this book.

The British scholar Richard Hess wrote a commentary on Joshua I consulted. I know little about Hess. I benefited from what he wrote. I wrote down this quote and we’ll get to it in the sermon, “Christ takes upon himself the sin of the world and becomes the victim of the holy war that God wages against sin (2 Cor 5:21) (Hess, 46).” I also have a commentary by a former Calvin professor named Woudstra.

Wendell Berry writes both fiction and essays. He farms in Kentucky. His books consider how modernity is reshaping life. Berry is part of a Baptist church though his writings are not theologically explicit or sophisticated in the manner of Flannery O’Connor. Berry takes issue with individualism and modernity and by virtue of that interest was sitting at the table in my study part of the week. (I actually had to go home and get him at lunch). I listened to Berry through both his essays and his fiction. Berry refuses to have a computer. His wife types his for him on a Royal typewriter.

I have been thinking this week too about Flannery O’Connor, who wrote fiction. Catholic, she was more theological than Wendell Berry (and harder to read too). She died when she was only 39. In addition to attending the University of Iowa (despite being a Southerner through and through) she was a literary genius. Miss O’Connor suffered terribly physically, but her writing has a depth because of it. A Wheaton professor, Jill Palaez Baumgaertner has helped me understand O’Connor. See Flannery O’Connor: A Proper Scaring. She and I swapped e-mails this week.

Justin Taylor is a blogger who works at Crossway. He is the managing editor for the ESV study Bible. He wrote a post, “How Could God Command Genocide?” which I reread for this sermon. I know Justin just a little personally through my relationship with Crossway.

Dan Block is a professor at Wheaton. I have spent two different study retreats with him. I consulted an unpublished handout he wrote that has the title, The Ethics of Israel’s Conquest of Canaan.

The book, Hard Sayings of the Bible, by Walt Kaiser (he handed me my doctoral diploma), Davids, Bruce, and Brauch is a good one to think about owning. It is published by IVP.