These notes accompany my podcast Caesar’s Stuff. Translation and Notes It’s important in reading any of these challenge stories to consider the challengers, the situation in which Jesus finds himself, and the goals he is trying to accomplish. For example, here he needs to respond to the questioners in such a way as to keep…
Many years ago, more years than I will admit to, I went into a Jewish book and supply store and requested a copy of the “Hebrew Old Testament.” I recall vividly the look on the store clerk’s face, and I apologized, but it’s not an error that you can recover from easily. To a Jew,…
Suzanne McCarthy has been blogging on complementarianism over on the Better Bibles Blog. I have been following her posts with interest, and I would like to commend them to my readers. The entries to date are: Modes of Communication I, Modes of Communication II, Modes of Communication III. Suzanne obviously doesn’t subscribe to the “snazzy…
I’ve appreciated much of what John Piper has said about the prosperity gospel. Prosperity theology strikes me as not just false (Biblically and experientially), but particularly dangerous because it either drives one from faith and its actual benefits, or creates a very shallow Christian at best, ready to be driven away at the first difficulty….
I’ve been meaning to post this for a few days, but it’s been busy, as you can tell from my low level of blogging. Geoffrey Lentz is the associate pastor of First United Methodist Church of Pensacola, and a former student of mine. In fact, I met Geoffrey in the first class I taught for…
A guest contributor to The Jesus Creed asks this question. He comes at it from the angle of just how far such a teaching would be from what is implied in the gospels, from which our definition of “Gospel” should come. I’m not a cessationist, though I think it is important for people on the…