First read http://jmm.org.au/articles/21674.htm

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Thanks, Rowland.

I’d add Rodney Stark’s “The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History” to the church history section (from my NT perspective — many riveting insights into everyday life in the first century world, and especially the cities; has direct relevance for how we interpret and preach Paul’s letters, especially). Of course, Ken’s two volumes are great for Aussie Baptists to get a sense of what we’ve done well . . . and not so well . . . We have them available here at Whitley (the new American edition — yes, it has already been reprinted)

for $100 the set.

I didn’t get to check the whole of your list. Did you have the Australian Christian Book of the Year 2008 listed there? “God Next Door” by Simon Holt!!

As for Greek lexica (lexicons?) — well, I reckon the Louw and Nida “Greek-English Lexicon of the NT, Based on Semantic Domains” (2 vols) is a great resource. It’s aimed for translators, but its classifying of words into meaning-groups allows us not only to see which words the NT writers are using and what they might mean, but also which ones they DON’T choose to use (which can be very interesting).

Realistically, however, I think busy Pastors need access to good commentaries which, among other things, deal with the Greek text and any tricky words or variants. The Word commentaries (available on disk) are generally pretty good at this (some a bit dry — but always informative), and I think the Westminster John Knox Press ‘Interpretation’ series are also very useful. There are many others also, these days, and the best of them will give you not just a ‘dictionary definition’ of a word (as if meanings never change), but also a sense of how the word is used and the range of possible meanings.

Cheers,

Keith Dyer

September 2008