Over on Locusts and Honey, John has a post On the Dangers of Being a Professional Wiseman, that I think should be read by everyone involved in pastoring, spiritual formation, professional counselling, or even just prayer ministry. The temptation to believe that because one has certain professional training, experience, ordination, licensure, or any one of…
I’ve just located a wonderful series of blog entries on Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible online through my own complete laziness and the hard work of someone else! (Hat Tip: Suzanne McCarthy at Better Bibles Blog in her entry Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Suzanne’s entry is worthwhile itself for its list of…
One frequent accusation I hear because I prefer modern translations over the KJV for most purposes is that I hate the KJV. Presumably, the people who say such things think that they honor the KJV by means of their doctrine. Nothing could be further from the truth. I believe that the KJV was probably the…
I found an outline and notes for 1 Corinthinas 12-14 that I wrote back in 2001. Now I have also been working with Gordon Fee’s commentary on 1 Corinthians, and he uses an outline based on the questions that Paul received in the letter to him from the Corinthians. I think his is a valid…
I’m going to write today about a neglected part of God’s creation–the human mind. It is a wonderful element of creation, one that has provoked some of the most profound philosophical and scientific writing. No, I don’t mean merely that people think with their minds and then write philosophy and science. I’m referring to writing…
The Washington Post has a story about conservative intellectuals who are becoming infuriated with what they see as inaction in recent foreign policy decisions by the Bush administration. In the article, Bush faces backlash on the right, they quote a number of people in this category, but this one summarizes it: “It is Topic A…
This is a follow-up to my post Information or Conversation, and it would probably be a good idea to read that entry first. One element of God’s method of revealing himself to people is that he chooses specific people to accomplish specific missions. I want to look at the time of the exile, and three…
I frequently get into discussions about the inspiration of the Bible. These discussions generally center around such texts as 2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:20-21, or Hebrews 4:12. Now all of these are good texts from which to study about the nature of scripture, but it interests me that we build theology from these texts…
In God’s economy, there is never prosperity without mission. I’ve been thinking about this in the last few days in connection with a number of issues, and I think it is a scriptural principle. I think you can replace “prosperity” with other terms of blessing, such as peace, joy, and fulfilment. This is where, in…
Recently I’ve talked a fair amount about using numbers as a means to dress up lies and make them look more respectable. I even discussed the issue in a Sunday School class I was invited to teach last Sunday, using the various ways in which grocery (or any) prices and sales can be stated and…