chapter on not taking God's name in vain was worth reading the book for, and there is so much more than that here.
I found the first chapters had more continuity than those towards the end but that
may be my attention span, :/ Too many tangential thoughts and not enough time spent fully developing the main points, Buenas enseñanzas y paralelismos con nuestro Señor, Clowney does a good job reflecting on the ten commandments and how they apply for the believer today, However, I would have liked to see more theological reflections and support for his views, A worthwhile book when reflecting upon the Ten Commandments, This was the last book Dr, C wrote before going to be with Jesus, He is a dear Christian with a heart for the Gospel, Perhaps the book doesn't reflect the best of his thoughts, it still is a testimony to his desire to bring glory to God.
Reasonable read. There's some helpful material here in how the Ten Commandments relate to and are fulfilled in the Person and work of Jesus Christ.
But I was uncomfortable with the level of discontinuity Clowney seems to advocate between the Old and New Testament, and often times his discussion of the actual sin in each commandment is either way too brief or it misses the point.
I love Clowney's writings and preaching but this is not his best work, and it's pretty low on my list of books on this subject.
Typically when you study the Ten Commandments it is limited to an OT view, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments helps us to understand how Jesus furthers and fulfills or "fills up what was lacking" in these commands.
This brings the Commandments to a new level, It's ok, at times not as focused as it should be, I really do mean a Goodreads twostar rating it was OK, If this were Amazon it'd be three,
There wasn't anything I would classify as bad theology or exhortation in the Christian life, There just wasn't anything that hasn't already been said though,
As I stated in one my reviews of Clowney's other works, his lectures available on iTunes U seem to be a lot better than his writing at least in my opinion.
So good! Really good look at how "Christ fulfills the law, not by diminishing it, but by deepening and widening it, " Good overview and some good thoughts but not much depth, A helpful walkthrough the Ten Commandments and how Jesus fulfilled each one of them, Interesting focussed reflections for my own walk with God, Not to be sneered at as an exercise but as one for genuine contemplation and learning from God, It's deeply convicting as times as the bar set is so high, It's like an audit check of some sort, I feel, I find reading the Ten Commandments from Exodus Chapteris a gloss reading whilst this book has helped me to examine myself in a structured manner.
Impressive hermeneutics. It wasn't the "wow" book I anticipated, but it doesn't change the fact that he spoke of each of the ten in a way that I've never thought of before.
A few of them extremely profound, I loved his explanation of the lying and stealing commands in how we subtly break those, Great words from a great man, Clowney takes a traditional Reformed Confessional view of the the commandments but he has a more "balanced," less dogmatic view, He leans more toward "principle" in application, I think because he focuses more on the Biblical Theology framework, I really like Dr. Clowney, and I really wanted to like this book, But ultimately, I found it to be quite disappointing, The content isn't necessary bad he brings up some great ideas and ties, But it meanders way too much and seems to lack any good cohesion at times, Many thoughts and ideas are brought up, but then are left open without any elaboration, If this book were longer, it could be pretty good, But the lack of structure and staying on topic makes this a disappointing read, That was actually my comment below Nathan White's review here:
When I first went through the Ten Commandments with the church I was then, I thought this was the best book available and possibly was.
Now I am preaching through the Decalogue elsewhere, I tend to agree with you on it, Nathan, Oversimplifications, easily overlooking profound points while focusing on something that as you say, misses the point, In the second commandment he is not even thinking in the categories of 'Jesus is the image of God good news' as the second Adam fulfilling the mission of the first Adam.
Yeah, I usually like him, but he tends to bore me now with this book instead of stimulate my thinking and leading me to worship.
JV Fesko's 'The Rule of Love' and 'The Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism' by Zacharias Ursinus are on the top of my list, period.
Kevin deYoung is sometimes hit or even homerun! sometimes miss then I'm like 'really, Kev, is that the best you've got', I just liked this book, It wasn't great nor was it bad, It wasn't what I was expecting either, In true Vosian fashion this was a redemptivehistorical look at each of the Ten Commandments, He does touch on some practical elements of the place of the law in the life of Christian in a very balanced manner.
Some may scoff at a few of his conclusions but that's okay, All in all, it always great to join Clowney in exulting in Christ, I respect Clowney a great deal and this book gave insight into theCommandments, some of which is straightforward, some which was brilliant exegesis in conjunction with Christ and the New Testament.
A little brief aroundpages, but Clowney gave me much to meditate upon and in some areas challenged me to really think through the ways I should seek to love God and neighbor.
I found this book to be quite average, Overall Clowney makes good points, however there are a number of instances where his exposition of particular commandments are confused and unconvincing.
Expounding on thend commandment he argues that realistic portraits of Christ are impermissible, whereas unrealistic pictures of Christ are permissible.
His reasoning is unconvincing and veers from the standard Reformed position which rejects all false images of Christ,
Expounding on theth commandment he argues that Jesus' disciples broke the Sabbath by picking grain and that Jesus defends their Sabbath breaking by giving the example of David's Sabbath breaking.
He goes on to argue that their Sabbath breaking was justified because it was in the service of Christ and others,
It is unfortunate that Clowney refers to the actions of David and the disciples as "Sabbath breaking, " This wording implies that Christ defended law breaking, which is to impute actual sin to Christ, The standard Reformed position is that works of necessity and mercy are permissible on the Sabbath/Lord's Day and thus do not constitute Sabbath breaking.
Thus the terms he uses here are inaccurate and unhelpful, and implies something he probably doesn't intend,
For a more tried and trusted read, I would recommend picking up Thomas Watson's exposition of the Ten Commandments, .