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In this video, Dr. Jim Bradford continues his devotional series on the topic of marriage. This is part 6 of 7.

In this video, Doug Clay offers devotional thoughts about Numbers 14:22-23, which mentions the consequences of disbelief and disobedience.

In this video, Doug Clay talks about Leviticus 20:7-8.

In this video, Dr. George O. Wood continues his devotional series on the Gospel of Mark by talking about Jesus’ teaching on divorce in Mark 10:10-12. Dr. Wood is general superintendent of the Assemblies of God (and my dad).

In this video, Dr. George O. Wood reflects on how to keep “hardness of heart” out of your marriage.

In this video, Dr. George O. Wood continues his devotional series on the Gospel according to Mark. Wood is general superintendent of the Assemblies of God (and my dad).

Sean Michael Lucas, God’s Grand Design: The Theological Vision of Jonathan Edwards (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011). $17.99, 224 pages.

My doctrine of salvation is Arminian, so you may wonder why I think highly of Sean Michael Lucas’s study of Jonathan Edwards, whose soteriology was Calvinist. The answer is twofold:

First, Lucas has written an accessible introduction to the biblical theology and pastoral practice of “America’s greatest theologian”—as Robert Jenson described Edwards. Whatever their theological stripes may be, interested students of theology are in Lucas’s debt for this service. Edwards’s literary corpus is large and his thought complex, but Lucas ably guides his readers through Edwards’s theology, showing its narrative unity, comprehensive scope, and direct connection to pastoral practice. He illustrates this theology with well-chosen quotations from Edwards works, situating Edwards’s writings in their historical context. And Lucas appends an “Annotated Bibliography” of the best primary sources by and secondary sources about Edwards, so that readers new to Edwards can know what to read first.

Second—and to my mind, most important—by offering this accessible introduction, Lucas offers contemporary pastors an Edwardsian model for how to integrate biblical theology into their own pastoral practice. This offer comes across explicitly in the appendix, “‘A Man Just Like Us’: Jonathan Edwards and Spiritual Formation for Ministerial Candidates.” But it is implicit throughout the rest of the book. Lucas’s intent for this book, in other words, is not merely historical. Rather, the history serves a larger purpose: namely, helping ministers better understand and practice their divine vocation.

Lucas demonstrates the connection in Edwards’s ministry between what today we might call message and method. The message of the gospel is the desire of the Holy Trinity to take up creation into its own glory, a desire accomplished by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ and reflected by how Christians live. That life is characterized not merely by right beliefs or right actions but most important by right “affections” or “virtue.” The methods by which we promulgate this message must be appropriate to the end God seeks. Ministers, therefore, must call people to faith in Jesus Christ, a faith that produces an all-encompassing love for God and neighbor. The “means of grace” Edwards considered appropriate to this end were preaching, the sacraments (baptism and communion), and prayer.

Obviously, as an Arminian, I have concrete objections to aspects of Edwards’s soteriology, for example, his anti-Arminianism. Lucas (quoting Gerald McDermott) notes that “Edwards’s struggle with Arminianism was but a battle in a life-long war with deism.” Edwards, it seems to me, routinely collapsed Arminianism into deism, even though no less than the evangelical Arminian John Wesley published an edited version of his Religious Affections. So, I must demur from many of Edwards’s conclusions. Nonetheless, and following Wesley’s example, it seems to me that religious affections might be a point of rapprochement between evangelical Calvinists and Arminians. Didn’t Wesley also speak of “heart religion,” after all?

Perhaps it is time that we Arminians stopped thinking of Edwards as a Calvinist only and started thinking of him as a teacher of the entire Church, including us. Obviously, we can’t accept everything Edwards teaches. (Even Calvinists don’t do that!) But we can learn much and benefit greatly from his manifold insights. (Who knows, maybe Calvinists will start treating Wesley in the same way…)

I doubt Lucas intended his book to produce such thoughts in Arminians, but it produced such thoughts in this Arminian. So, I affectionately recommend God’s Grand Design.

P.S. If you found this review helpful, please vote “Yes” on my Amazon.com review page.

Over at Black, White and Gray, Bradley Wright is writing a series of posts on deconversion, answering the question, “Why do Christians leave the faith?”

Here are the posts so far:

• “The Fundamental Importance of Apologetics”

In reading through these testimonies, and understanding how many of the former Christians linked their departure from the faith to these intellectual and theological concerns, I started wondering if the Church has an incomplete appreciation of the role of apologetics. Typically, the defending of Christianity encompassed by apologetics is aimed at non-Christians, helping them to understand the faith as removing their objections to it. I accept that, but perhaps an even more useful role is with existing Christians, helping them to think through these issues from a Christian perspective.

• “Breaking Up with a God Who Failed Them”

I am struck by how much these accounts resonate with sociological theories of human relationships, especially those coming from social exchange theory. This theory describes humans as judging the value of relationships in terms of costs and benefits. One variation of social exchange theory, termed equity theory, holds that people are satisfied with their relationships when they get the rewards that they feel are proportional to the costs that they bear. An inequitable is unstable, and it usually occurs because a person thinks they receive too little for how much they give.Many of the testimonies given by former Christians described a broken relationship with God as one might talk about a marital divorce. They are emotional, even bitter at times. They contain the language of inequality. The writers did so much for God – praying, attending church, following God – but God did not do enough in return.

• “The Problem of Responding Badly to Doubt”

The way that Christians react to the doubts of others can, inadvertently, amplify existing doubt. Many of the writers told of sharing their burgeoning doubts with a Christian friend or family member only to receive trite, unhelpful answers. These answers, in turn, moved them further away from Christianity.

In this video, Dr. George O. Wood continues his devotional series on the Gospel of Mark. Wood is general superintendent of the Assemblies of God (and my dad).

In this video, I interview Kerry Clarensau about her new book, “Love Revealed,” about women’s ministries in the Assemblies of God, and about AG women ministers.