Thomas R. Schreiner

"This is my body" (1 Corinthians 11:24). Hoc est corpus. Defining the verb, "to be" in this context has been one of the most divisive tasks the church has undertaken. On one side of the spectrum you have the transubstantiation of the Roman Catholic church. On the other side you have the memorialism of Zwingli's descendents. "Do this ... in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:25).

In The Lord's Supper, Schreiner and Crawford have collected essays from Southern Baptists which reflect on the show more "biblical, historical, theological, and pastoral issues" required to properly understand the meal (391). The survey of Biblical material is particularly helpful. Köstenburger leads the volume with an essay exploring the Passover roots of the meal before Pennington and Hamilton Jr. survey Gospel and Pauline literature, respectively.

The historical essays begin with the church fathers, pause on each of the reformers, and close with a look at recent Baptist history. Here the polemic of the volume comes to the forefront. Each of these essays examine the way a particular group understood the Lord's Supper before pointing out how these views are in part faulty. This volume is "a book written by Baptists for Baptists, a fact that [the editors] make no apology for" (391).

There are challenges even within the Baptist camp. In Gregory A. Wills' essay, "Sounds from Baptist History," he traces the movement of the Southern Baptist church from close to open communion. (Close communion is restricted to church members whose regeneration and subsequent baptism has been demonstrated.) You can almost hear the pain in his voice when he writes, "The widespread adoption of open Communion among conservative Southern Baptists indicated that they did not cross the twentieth century unscathed by the progressive currents against which they struggled." (311). "Close Communion was not the only victim. ... The traditional church practices and structures lost their basis in a 'thus saith the Lord'" (312).

Craig L. Blomberg offered this blurb for the back cover: "While Schreiner and Crawford stress that this volume was written by Southern Baptists for Southern Baptists, it would be a pity if this emphasis prevented their book from receiving the very wide readership that it deserves." Blomberg is right. The Lord's Supper provides the reader with a thorough education on the various elements of our Christian meal. If you're not a Southern Baptist, be prepared to interact critically and thoughtfully with the material. show less

First sentence: Why would anyone want to write on the final judgment? It might seem that anyone who writes on this theme is obsessed with the negative, with hate instead of love, with punishment instead of mercy, with crankiness instead of joy.

For a theological book, this was a short, quick, "little" read. The subject is the justice and goodness of God. How does God's goodness relate to God's justice? Would God be good if he wasn't at the same time just? The justice of God is not at odds show more with his attributes--obviously. A good, faithful, holy, loving, merciful God HAS to be a JUST God, a God of justice. This little book traces the justice of God throughout the Bible. He tackles this generally and broadly in the first few chapters. In the middle chapters, Schreiner focuses on justice in the New Testament. The book concludes with further implications of God's justice. How should we as Christians respond and live in light of God's justice AND goodness. The final chapter is "Salvation Shines Brighter," and indeed it does. Christians are done no favors when theologians--pastors, preachers, writers--pick and choose which of God's attributes to "allow" or preach upon. Christians need the whole counsel of the Word of God, and the Bible has a LOT to say about God's justice AND God's goodness. This book also speaks of God's holiness.

Chapter titles:
Only a Holy God
The Ugliness of Sin
Judgment in the Gospels and Acts
Judgment in the Epistles
Judgment in the Book of Revelation
Living in Light of the Judgment
Salvation Shines Brighter.
Quotes:
I am writing this book for missionaries, for pastors, for Christians in ministry, and for all Christians to remind us that judgment is fundamental to the message we proclaim so that we will not be ashamed of or neglect speaking about judgment. Indeed, I hope Christians will rejoice in judgment, not because they long for the punishment of others (since we pray and hope that all will be saved) but because judgment displays the holiness and goodness of God. Without judgment, God would not be good, and life on earth would be without meaning since our moral decisions would not ultimately matter.

The Lord loves justice because his very person, his very nature, is just. He doesn’t love justice as something outside of himself.

If the Lord is righteous, loves righteousness, and rewards righteousness, then the converse follows as well. His love of righteousness also means that evil will be frowned on and punished.

Righteousness and goodness are compromised if evil is tolerated, ignored, and overlooked, especially when one has the power to resist wickedness. Even though judgment is often thought to be cruel, the opposite is the case. An authority who indulgently allows evil to occur without any consequence is not righteous but wicked.

As with holiness and righteousness, justice isn’t a virtue to which God conforms. Instead, God is just; he is intrinsically and inherently righteous so that justice constitutes God’s very being. Psalm 89:14 avers, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.” Because God is just, we are not surprised to read that he loves justice (Ps. 33:5) and that he delights in justice (Jer. 9:24), which is really another way of saying that the Lord delights in himself.

Judgment doesn’t take place in a vacuum; it is not arbitrary, whimsical, or capricious. As we saw in the previous chapter, judgment takes place for a reason, and the reason is human sin. Sin deserves judgment: it denies God’s lordship, deforms human beings, wars against truth, and destroys human community.

God set up the universe to function as he willed, and he isn’t absent from the world he created. He is always and ever the personal God, recompensing both the righteous and wicked according to what is right. We see here an example of retributive justice in that punishment and iniquity are bound together in a package.

When we feel and sense that we deserve judgment, the beauty and loveliness of God’s mercy stands forth in all its splendor. Forgiveness isn’t cheap or trivial but precious and costly. In forgiving sinners God does not compromise his justice. The justice of God is satisfied in the atoning sacrifice of his Son. show less

Reading commentaries has become somewhat of a pastime for me. I enjoy both depth of studying and devotional reading. When I heard that a new commentary series was in the works from Zondervan, I wondered if I had time to add yet another set in my reading queue. After having previewed a copy of Galatians by Thomas Shreiner, I am convinced that this series will be a welcome addition to my library.

The Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament has blended solid academic scholarship show more with clear exegesis. The result is a highly useful commentary for preachers, teachers and serious students of the Word of God.

In Galatians, Shreiner deals with the text while interacting with proponents of various views. One walks away not only knowing what the text says but also where the points of contention pertaining to interpretation are located. This commentary is well documented so if the reader wants to follow up in studying any particular viewpoint, he/she can do so easily. Schreiner discusses the new perspective in a thorough and gracious way.

The commentary starts out with a general introduction. From there you dive into the text. Each pericope starts out with literary context. This helps keep your focus on the flow of the book.From there you move to a section that explains the main point of the passage. There is a graphical layout of the text that aides you in seeing the structure of the passage being discussed. There is also an exegetical outline . As you continue on to the section that explains the passage, the English translation is presented along with the Greek text for those who are familiar with the original language. At the end of the explanation of the passage, there is a theological application section that helps you answer the question: So what? In some cases there are in-depth excursuses inserted in the text.

This commentary series is comparable to the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament but is visually more appealing. The one weakness of this series is in application. For this reason, this commentary does not replace Zondervan’s NIV Application Commentary but rather it compliments it.

I highly recommend this series to any one who wants to study the biblical text in depth. For those who only wear hip-waders, pick up the aforementioned NIV Application Commentary. show less

First sentence: Galatians heralds the truth of the gospel, and this gospel stands as the authority over all people everywhere.

Who is this book for? Who is this book not for? I feel that the casual bible reader with little to moderate experience with scholarly deep-dives will struggle with this book. Primarily for two reasons: first, Galatians is a weighty book to unpack. It covers some of the same topics as Paul's letter to the Romans, however, it is less general, more specific, and more show more layered. You have a LOT of decoding context to do before you even get to the theological bits. Second, the book is scholarly. This in and of itself is neither good nor bad. It is what it is. This is not something that can be read, understood, comprehended, mastered by a casual read-through. It requires YOU the reader to engage in complex, weighty theological ideas and concepts so that you can keep up or follow along with the author. If your understanding begins to weaken, if things begin to slide right on over your head, there is no "catching up" and "muddling through" and hoping that the next chapter will clarify. For those more experienced with [weighty] theology and are used to reading scholarly books--textbooks even--then this one will prove an easier go.

One thing that I was able to appreciate was its clarity. You might be confused. Didn't I just say this one was too complex for the average reader? (And I am definitely in that grouping with this one. I struggled.) The book is clearly laid out and organized. It tells you what to expect in each part or section, each chapter. Each chapter has a CONCLUSION which sums up the main points of the chapter. If nothing else, the conclusions help clarify some of the arguments. If not for the conclusions, then I might have given up all hope of finishing this one.

What I did read and understand--there were some bits--I found thought-provoking. I appreciated that he was trying to put the book into context and piece together WHAT Paul's opponents actually-actually believed instead of just diving into the Scripture itself. If Paul is arguing THIS in response, can we figure out more clearly WHAT position(s) were being held. At one point it was like theological algebra--solving for x. The discussion on circumcision, for example, brought up some points that I had not considered.

I decided to rate four stars because I think most likely what is here is solid theologically, I just couldn't quite understand it well enough to fully engage and benefit from it. Perhaps ministers and teachers could benefit more from it because it was written more on their level. show less