Two I Started But Might Not Finish

I don’t always finish the books I start. There are various reasons for that, and usually it isn’t because the book is bad. Here are two that I recently started reading that I’ve decided to set aside for now and maybe forever.

How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One
As the title suggests, this little book by Stanley Fish is about appreciating and crafting sentences. After the first chapter, I was sure I would love it, but things fizzled in the middle. I set it aside and never picked it up again until this morning, when I cleaned off my desk. 

I thumbed through to refresh my memory, read some of the last chapter on last sentences and was once again intrigued. I’ve decided to read that chapter and the one before it on first sentences and leave it at that. And that’s more than I planned to read before I began this post on books I might not finish.

Would you like it? I don’t know. It won’t teach you how to write better sentences any more than a book about fine wine will help you with wine-making. But if you love language, you might enjoy the whole thing as much as this reviewer did.

O Love That Will Not Let Me Go
This is another of Nancy Guthrie’s books of collected essays by classic and contemporary Christians. The purpose is to help believers learn to think rightly about death so that they can “die well.” I read several excellent essays, but grew tired of thinking about dying. It didn’t help that I recently read and reviewed another book about death. 

I feel bad for not finishing, because I know there aren’t enough books on this subject. I also know that this book in particular is a valuable resource and one I recommend. I especially enjoyed the essay by Richard Baxter with Directions for a Peaceful Departure.

Maybe I’ll finish later, but right now, I’m death saturated, and ready to move on to something else.

Thankful Thursday

I missed Thankful Thursday last week because I had no internet, so I’m going to start out today thanking God that I have internet access again. I’m also thankful that the stretched cable wound through the trees with it’s creepy creaking noise is gone, gone, gone.

I’m thankful for my home and my furnace and the quilts on my bed. I’m also thankful for my programmable thermostat that warms things up before I get out of bed in the morning. 

I’m thankful that little Natalie continues to grow and develop and bring joy to us all. She is truly a miracle baby, coming very close to not making it into this world alive, and that makes me all the more thankful for her. 

I’m thankful that God sent his Son into this world as a little baby, the best gift of all.

Throughout this year I’m planning to post a few thoughts of thanksgiving each Thursday along with Kim at the Upward Call and others. 

Round the Sphere Again: Questions About Scripture

What’s the difference between inerrancy and infallibility?
”Infallibility addresses possibility—inerrancy addresses fact.” 

In fact, infallibility is a much stronger term than inerrancy in many respects. To say that the Bible is infallible is not simply to say that it is free from error, but that it is incapable of erring.

(Aaron Armstrong at Blogging Theologically).

What do we mean when we say the Bible is inspired?
”Inspiration addresses the method of transmission” (Aaron Armstrong at Blogging Theologically).

God guided the human authors of Scripture—“carried them along by the Holy Spirit,” as Peter wrote—using their unique perspectives, writing styles and experiences to record the exact message He desired to be expressed to humanity.

“God causes His message to enter into a man’s mind … so that the man may then faithfully relay the message to others” (J. I. Packer quoted by Justin Taylor).

God so controlled the process of communication to and through His servants that, in the last analysis, He is the source and speaker….

What inspiration doesn’t mean is this: “For God knows under just what circumstances Paul would, for example, freely write his letter to the Romans. By creating Paul in those circumstances, God can bring it about that Romans is just the message He wants to convey to us” (William Lane Craig at Reasonable Faith).

If this is the way inspiration works, then (I kid you not; Craig really does say this!)

[t]he essential difference [between the writings of Christopher Hitchens and the writing of Paul in Romans] lies not in the mode of God’s action. … Rather the essential difference lies in God’s attitude toward what is written.”  

God signs off, according to Craig, on Romans, but he doesn’t endorse what Christopher Hitchens writes.

That’s hardly a view of inspiration that’s derived from scripture, which tells us that scripture is produced by men who “spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21). Or, in other words, scripture is breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16) and that’s what makes it different from other writings.

I don’t think this almost “hands off” (in the sense of not needing direct control) view of inspiration is required by Molinism, either. I’m guessing that it is WLC’s personal view and that it comes from his extreme commitment to libertarian free will, which makes him shrink from using the same words regarding the method by which scripture came into being that scripture itself uses.

Notice that, although he says that the essential difference between scripture and other writings is God’s attitude toward them, he also writes that he is

entirely open to the idea that the circumstances surrounding Paul’s freely writing Romans may have included certain promptings of the Holy Spirit absent from Hitchens’ circumstances.

Even here, he uses the word “promptings” in regards to the role of the Holy Spirit rather than the stronger “carried along” used in Scripture. “Promptings” are little nudges in the right direction; “carried along” takes you there.