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Pastor Andrew on Twitter
- RT @49ers: CAME IN AND TOOK IT #GONINERS https://t.co/mLrevxTbWG 6 days ago
- I'd love to work "athwart" into my main idea this week. It seems fitting for Exodus 1:1-22 and for #Advent - nevert… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
- RT @MattSmethurst: Nine red flags in a potential elder. https://t.co/7TOwlM0a96 2 weeks ago
- Good thread. twitter.com/james_ka_smith… 2 weeks ago
- “Preachers must acknowledge that what they read in the Bible is not for us to pretend away.” @ZackEswine in Preachi… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 3 weeks ago
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Recent Reading List
Creation in Space and Time by Francis Schaeffer
A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller
Preaching Christ from the Old Testament by Sidney Greidanus
Creation and Change by Douglas F. Kelly
Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp
Not the Way It's Supposed to Be by Cornelius Plantinga
Joy at the End of the Tether
Something I have found to be very helpful, when attempting to understand difficult areas of the Bible, is the aid of a good commentary. I enjoy the academic stuff, but I don’t often recommend it to others, because at times (if it’s not easy to comprehend) it only adds another layer of confusion in the search for clarity. Because of this, I try to sift through for more readable treatments of the biblical text, stuff that is more accessible to a wider audience. Unfortunately, this usually leads away from the text itself, to vague paraphrasing works that dumb down (or outright neglect) the thrust of the biblical narrative in an attempt to appeal to a wider readership.
Every once in a while you find a book that both embraces and explains the biblical text in a format and language that can satisfy the scholars while engaging the popular reader. This is rare, particularly when it comes to a book like Ecclesiastes. A great, quick, and engaging read I have just finished which fits faithfully into this category is Joy at the End of the Tether by Douglas Wilson.
The genius of Wilson’s work is that he embraces the text of Ecclesiastes without qualification. Solomon’s little book of wisdom is often filtered through a strainer, sifted down to one-liners and short quips that are more palpable for the modern interpreter. Wilson rebuffs any tendency to neuter the text in this way. He cautions:
The theme of Joy at the End of the Tether is Ecclesiastes, and Wilson argues that the theme of Ecclesiastes is “that enjoyment and pleasure are by grace through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.”[2] As the text is liberated to speak for itself, Wilson offers blunt-force commentary replete with applicable truisms and examples for modern culture. The only thing I would change would be the version he utilizes for the text, which I believe is the King James. Other than utilizing a more updated word for word Bible translation (like the ESV or NASB), every page of this short overview of Ecclesiastes is gold.
[1] Wilson, p. 16.
[2] p. 59.
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About Pastor Andrew
Follower of Jesus, Husband to Carissa, Daddy to four daughters, Lead Pastor at LifePoint Church in Vancouver, WA.