Z Books Around the Web - Luke, Molinism, and the Jewish Paul

Nijay Gupta reviews Garland’s Luke commentary in the ZECNT
series. 

“The Zondervan Exegetical Commentary has been releasing new
commentaries in a flurry! I have very much enjoyed engaging in the commentaries
on Ephesians (Arnold) and Matthew (Osborne). Recently I worked through quite a
bit of David Garland’s Luke commentary in this series. At over 1000 pages in
hardcover style, it is a mammoth volume!

The series has a distinctive format and agenda: good,
rigorous, text-centered exposition of the text with an interest in application.
Zondervan knows how to write textbooks, so the font and formatting are very
easy on the eyes. Each section begins with a helpful introduction, a one-liner
“main idea” and a sentence flow."

Terrance Tiessen responds to William Lane Craig’s Molinist
model in Four Views on Divine Providence.

“If Craig is correct, as I think he is, that Scripture
clearly teaches that God does know counterfactuals of future creaturely action,
then humans do not have libertarian freedom. Consequently, I concur with
Helseth that it is the compatibilist account of the relationship between moral
character and moral activity (rather than the Molinist scheme) which is
“essential to understanding the ‘staggering assertion[s] of divine sovereignty
over the affairs of men’ that are found in passages like Acts 2 and 4” (111).” 

And, Bill Tammeus engages with Marc Nanos’ contribution to
Four Views on the Apostle Paul.

“The problem as Nanos sees it is that many Christians
"approach Paul as if he stands outside Judaism and finds fault with it as
inferior to his new religion." 

The truth is that Paul was always a Torah-observant Jew and
always understood himself to be within the subset of First Century Jews who
believed that the Messiah had come in Jesus Christ and that his resurrection
marked the opening of a new era in God's economy. Paul also understood himself
to be called as an apostle to the gentiles, or non-Jews. And he insisted that
these non-Jews did not first have to become Jewish proselytes and do a full
conversion to Judaism before becoming members of the Jesus Movement and, thus,
Christ followers.”