Logos Seminary Scholarship

In case you haven’t already heard, Logos (the folks who produce Libronix) are offering a seminary scholarship. I don’t know the likelihood of receiving it, but I do know that it is one of the easiest to apply for. It just takes a short video and short form, and that’s it!

As a bonus, for those who do receive the scholarship, if you happened to have purchased a base package of Libronix the same day, they will also refund the price.

I’m sure there probably isn’t a seminary student out there who wouldn’t benefit from this. Whether you put the money toward tuition, books, or taking your wife out for dinner I know it will be gladly received. As a big fan of Libronix I would consider putting it towards the new Spurgeon Collection (and don’t forget about academic discount). In fact, I purchased my base package of Libronix with the first seminary gift that I received, so it sounds like something I’d do.

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From Exegesis to Exposition

In Robert Chisholm’s wonderful book on exegesis, I’ve come to the chapter bringing all the tools together and giving examples.  I can’t recreate it all here, but I did appreciate the exposition after seeing all of the rigorous language work that went into it.  For those that wonder about the process that preachers go through, here are the general steps, and perhaps it will be instructive:

Step 1: Viewing the Forest

When working in Hebrew narrative, mark out the literary unit and then develop a tentative outline of each literary unit’s structure/paragraph divisions.  When working in a poetic text, develop a tentative outline of the psalm or speech.

Step 2: Entering the Woods

When working in narrative, develop a working translation of the passage and then outline the basic structure of each paragraph.  When working in poetry, develop a working translation of the passage ad then identify the type of parallelism in each verse.

Step 3: Looking at the Trees

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Microsoft Office and Citations

Students banging out their final papers this semester with Microsoft Word 2007 will be interested in this tutorial on creating and managing references, courtesy of Microsoft. The references tab on Word 2007’s new ribbon offers a slick way to enter your sources and choose a style to display them, from APA to Chicago to MLA.

 As I write my paper, all of the citations that I have been inputting are stored in this awesome tool called the source manager, which can be accessed by clicking “Manage Sources.” This means that instead of my list of books I have been poring over going into the ether I call index cards, all of my work is stored in one little handy database. Enter incredible time savings.

From the Bibliography drop-down, choose whether you want a bibliography or works cited section and Word automatically generates and formats it for you. Handy.

Final paper time [The Microsoft Office Word Team’s Blog]

From Lifehacker, and as a side note, it appears to work similarly in Office 2008 for Mac as well.

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Dallas Seminary & Distinctives

Michael Patton has reflect on his person opinions and their contrast to DTS, and I find it to be thoughtfully and succinctly written.  I find much agreement with his writing, and did not previously know the distinctives of DTS.  The only point upon which Patton disagrees is upon the rejection of limited atonement.  This is what he had to say:

5. Rejection of Limited Atonement: This is where I might part ways with my beloved school. Dallas Seminary is reformed in its soteriology. There are no Arminians on staff that I know of. It would be considered a “four-point Calvinist” school. Although it sometimes depends on the day, the size of the moon, or the dew on the ground, generally speaking, I am an advocate of limited atonement. In other words, I am a five-point Calvinist. I believe that Christ only made a definite atonement only for the elect. While I believe that unlimited atonement does have some Scriptures that seem to strongly support it, I simply can’t get by the logical inconsistencies of saying that Christ made atonement for the sins of every man, yet some are not saved. Isn’t that the very definition of Salvation, that Christ made an atonement for you? I may change my position tomorrow, but for now I believe in limited atonement.

It is also fun to see TMS mentioned for something:

3. Inerrancy: I do hold to inerrancy, but again, not like some. I am not of the Master’s seminary variety that would hold to more of a technically precise inerrancy.

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Piper Logos PrePub, Rosscup Logos Pre-PrePub

Yesterday Logos started taking orders for the John Piper Collection which contains 24 of his books. With an MSRP of $360, it will most likely sell for $170 when it comes out and is available for preorder at $150. Production will begin when enough preorders have been made. Note, this is different from the previous announcement of the his sermon manuscript library , which should be shipping on 10/2/2007. Both seem like wonderful tools, and if you don’t already own the printed versions I highly recommend this new prepub.

Also, and you’ve heard it first here: James Rosscup’s monumental exposition of prayer will be coming to the Logos PrePup program soon, within the next week or two. [edit: It is now available for $160] for It is an effort of 15 years that resulted in nearly a 3,000 page work covering more than 1,000 references. A detailed index can help users quickly get to verses, ideas, words, etc.
Among the highlights:

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Renewing the Fear of God

If you don’t fear the Lord, there isn’t anything you won’t say, no place you won’t go, and not a thing you won’t touch – so explained Les Lofquist, executive director of the IFCA, at the TMS Chapel this morning as he exhorted the seminary students to have a real fear of God.

Fear? I thought we weren’t supposed to be afraid?

• The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man -Eccl 12:13
• Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin. -Exod 20:20
• And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. -Matt 10:28

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More Sermon MP3s

Dr. Timothy George is the Dean of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. He is delivering the Page Lectures this week at Southeastern Seminary, entitled “The Five Revolutions of the Reformation Era.”  Click here for the podcast, or here for the referring page.  Thanks Denny!

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Advice for Seminary Students with Families

Over at the Resurgence blog, and linked through by Said at Southern, here is some helpful advice:

1. Breathe. In and out, slowly. Once you get the rhythm, slowly let your body take it over for you. This helps tremendously when you need to stay alive.

Ok, here we go:

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Boyd Luter, Al Mohler, Hershael York and the SBC

For many seminary students it is difficult not to hear the murmuring caused by a certain anonymous open-letter to the trustees of the SBTS and SWBTS, the largest and most influential of the Southern Baptist seminaries. Perhaps you have not read all that has been said, and it may be to our benefit not to read many of the comments and reactions, but there is one response that is worth the time. Until now I hadn’t wanted to consider it, but I realize that there is a lot to be learned from the exchange.

This is definitely a wonderful opportunity to see how the best of us might handle such a situation Biblically. And so, here are links to the original article and letter posted at Boyd Luter’s blog as well as a reasonable and thoughtful response by Hershael York.

What can we learn? At a personal level I can identify wisdom concerning confrontation/church discipline, gossip, anger, leadership, character, and cooperation. Seriously, take the time to read it.

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Online LXX, Translation, and Parsing Helps

The Resurgence Greek Project not only offers the text of the Septuagint (LXX) but has programmed parsing and simple translation information on mouse-over. Check it out! Though it may not be the best manuscript, this is by far the best web-based original language tool that I’ve found.

Other resources off the top of my head are GreekBible.com, Unbound Bible at Biola, Strong’s Lexicon, Online Greek Interlinear Bible, Jonathan Robie’s Biblical Greek Resources, Brown-Driver-Briggs online, and the NT Gateway with many more links.

So, even if you are away from the tools in your library or on your personal computer, you can do in-depth study from any computer with web access.

edit: Also check out the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha

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