If you attended the recent SEANG conference in Bangkok you will be expecting this post to announce the beginning of Vos Group in Southeast Asia. If you saw my last post then you may understand why I am so excited about this book (Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments).
How it Works
Every month or two we will read a few pages of the book, listen to a related podcast, and then dialogue on a FaceBook group. That’s it! Then when the Network holds its annual conferences we may have an opportunity to actually meet one another in person.
About the Book
“The aim of this book is no less than to provide an account of the unfolding of the mind of God in history, through the successive agents of his special revelation. Vos handles this under three main divisions: the Mosaic epoch of revelation, the prophetic epoch of revelation, and the New Testament.
“Such an historical approach is not meant to supplant the work of the systematic theologian; nevertheless, the Christian gospel is inextricably bound up with history, and the biblical theologian thus seeks to highlight the uniqueness of each biblical document in that succession. The rich variety of Scripture is discovered anew as the progressive development of biblical themes is explicated.
“To read these pages—the fruit of Vos’s 39 years of teaching biblical theology at Princeton—is to appreciate the late John Murray’s suggestion that Geerhardus Vos was the most incisive exegete in the English-speaking world of the twentieth century.” (from the publisher’s description)
“If hotels are classified as five star for top excellence then this is a five star book. I simply repeat the advice I have so often given—buy this book and study it. You will find it a most enriching experience and you will doubtless return to it again and again. It is not always armchair reading but it is reading which is eminently valuable.” — The Gospel Magazine (claims to be the oldest religious periodical still being published)
About the Author
“Geerhardus Vos (1862–1949) was born in the Netherlands, immigrating to the United States in 1881 at the age of 19. Vos studied at the Theologische School (later renamed Calvin Theological Seminary) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from 1881 to 1883 and afterwards at Princeton Theological Seminary (1883–85). Upon graduation from Princeton, he studied abroad at the University of Berlin (1885–86) and the University of Strasburg, where he was awarded a PhD in Arabic Studies (1888).
“Vos moved to Princeton Theological Seminary in 1893 to serve as the school’s first Professor of Biblical Theology.” He retired in 1932 to write poetry. He had actually already been writing poetic theology all of his career!
How to Join
Set up a Google+ profile if you don’t have one already. Search the Communities for “SEA Gospel Network – Vos Group” then “ask to join”. If you join before January 1, 2017 then you will start with us from the beginning. See you soon on Google+!
Update: Vos Group has moved from Google+ to Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/358750844540188/
Phil D
Phil's parents were career missionaries and he was raised in an Islamic Republic. He studied Engineering and then, more recently, studied Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. He is based in Southeast Asia and directs Asian Crescent, a region of the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). He is an ordained minister of the Philadelphia Metro-West Presbytery. He is married to Barb and has three adult children.