Books and More Books

 

Yesterday a dear friend gave me the idea that I should mention that Vos’s message on Heavenly – Mindedness is available in a little book titled Grace & Glory, by Vos with an introduction by R. Scott Clark. This is a collection of six sermons preached at Princeton’s chapel. While I have not read all six sermons, what I have read is rich, rich, rich. The book is available on Amazon. If you don’t want the book, you can find a PDF of the sermon Heavenly – Mindedness on the internet.

 

If you want a high intensity workout with Vos, there is his The Pauline Eschatology. WARNING, this is a heavy – lifting book and it can be slow going. On the other hand, I felt like I was in a classroom with Vos when I worked through it. I actually did skip one section because it was focused on things Vos was dealing with in his own historical situation and I didn’t want the material to slow me down, so don’t feel guilty if you too decide to jump over a section. On the other hand, Vos displays his thinking and how he reads the Bible in such a way that, once again, I felt like I was in his classroom.

 

Another WARNING with this book. It ain’t the candy cotton genre of material on prophecy that is so prevalent today, a mile wide and ¼ inch deep. It is comprehensive Biblical thinking with Christ as its center rather than speculation, nationalistic impulses, and fanciful schemes that seem to change with the headlines.

 

Discipleship on the Edge, by Darrell W. Johnson, is the best accessible book I’ve read on Revelation. If you are ready to look at Revelation with Christ as its center rather than speculation, this is the book for you. I highly recommend it. While I appreciate Vos’s The Pauline Eschatology, I’d go with Johnson first to help me with a framework prior to working with Vos.

 

The Divine Comedy, Dante. I really like Dorothy L. Sayers’s translation, which comes in three volumes. Sayers remains faithful to Dante’s poetic structure and the commentary and notes she supplies help the reader immeasurably. When Sayers died in the midst of translating Paradise, her friend and Italian scholar, Barbara Reynolds, finished the work which Sayers gave much of her latter life to.

 

Dorothy L. Sayers, Her Soul and Life, Barbara Reynolds. This is the best biography of Sayers that I’ve read, and it is by someone who knew her first professionally, and then in the bonds of friendship.

 

Creed or Chaos, Dorothy L. Sayers. This is a collection of essays and speeches by Sayers in which she remarkably and succinctly challenges the reader to think about the fundamentals of our faith, as Sayers said, “The beauty is on the dogma.”

 

I’ll have some more books in a day or two.