Book Review: Models of Premillennialism

My review of Sung Wook Chung's and David Mathewson's Models of Premillennialism (2018, Cascade Books) has been published in Conspectus 28 (September 2019). The review includes a summary and critique of the book. Here is an excerpt:

Chung and Mathewson have produced a digestible review of premillennial eschatologies put forward since the second century, showing how each one developed and what its unique characteristics are. By restricting their scope to premillennialism, the authors avoided inundating the reader with too much information which is readily available elsewhere. I was particularly glad to discover that the majority view of evangelical theologians is premillennialism, where the impression I had was that it was a minority view among them (even if is evidently popular in the camp of dispensational laymen.) Even so, Chung and Mathewson are not polemical in their presentation, nor do they seek to persuade the reader to adopt any eschatological position.

The review is freely available here: https://www.sats.edu.za/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Conspectus-28-11-Woods.pdf.

Wisdom in Esther

What wisdom can we gain from the main characters, Mordecai, Esther and Haman, in the book of Esther?

We learn that the wise decline to act on bad advice, but they respond positively to good advice.

• Day after day, the king's servants pressed Mordecai to obey the command of the king, to kneel and bow down to Haman, but Mordecai resisted. This appears early in the narrative (Est. 3.2-4) and it's only toward the end that we see that Mordecai's determination not to obey a bad command proved to be wise.
• In Esther 4.15-17, Queen Esther tells her relative, Mordecai, to arrange a fast for all the Jews in the city of Susa. Implicit in the narrative is an appeal for all Jews in the city to pray for her. Mordecai acted on Esther's word, and God acted in response to the Jews' fasting and prayers, and he saved them. Here, the wise Mordecai acted on a good command, as verse 17 says, "he did everything that Esther commanded him."
• In another place, Queen Esther was prompted by Mordecai to "go to the king and make supplication to him and entreat before him for her people" (Est. 4.8). Thus she did, contrary to the custom--even at risk of her own life. The wise take good advice!

We also learn from the book of Esther that fools reject good advice, but they act upon bad advice.

• The wicked Haman took the bad advice of his wife and all his friends (he must have kept bad company!) As Esther 5.14 says, they advised him to erect "gallows" on which to hang Mordecai; "The advice pleased Haman, so he had the gallows made." Later in the story, we learn that the fate he intended for his enemy came upon him instead--and his ten sons!
• In contrast, when Haman's advisers and his wife gave him good advice, warning him that he would "not prevail against [Mordecai] but certainly fall before him," Haman rejected it (Est. 6.13). His baseless hatred for the righteous Mordecai compelled him to reject words of wisdom and act in folly instead.

Review of Mark Kinzer's "Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen"

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to review Mark Kinzer's latest book, Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen, for Messiah Journal (issue 133, Winter 2019). I wrote that it is a:

groundbreaking work aimed at providing an integrated, coherent interpretation of the biblical text on diverse yet inextricable and indispensable components of the euangelion (good news): the Jewish people; the land of Israel; the city of Jerusalem; the temple, the Torah; the ekklēsia (including Jewish and gentile members); and the divine plan for humanity and the cosmos, especially in modern Jewish history. Ultimately these lead to an interpretation of the euangelion as a message that addresses all these matters with “integrative power.” Moreover, the euangelion is not merely historical (pointing to the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus) but also prophetic, pointing to what is yet to come for all its components listed above—or all but the temple, which is a special case. ...

The book is not for casual readers; it is for thought-leaders in the ekklēsia and the Jewish world, and it is an absolute must-have for advanced students of Luke-Acts.