Tonight in our Tuesday night hangout series, I will be interviewing Christopher J. Freet, author of the newly released book A New Look at Hospitality as a Key to Missions in the Areopagus Critical Christian Issues series regarding the topic of hospitality. We are open to audience questions. You can view this event on the Energion Publications Google+ page or use the embedded YouTube viewer below.
Jonathan Merritt writes a well-titled article: In the Middle East, not in America, Christians are Actually Persecuted (HT: Dave Black Online via The Jesus Paradigm). My tolerance for referring to the comfortable life Christians lead in this country was destroyed before I even knew such a thing was possible. At a very young age I…
The new, young associate pastor was praying, and in her prayer she referred to God as “Father-Mother God.” Silence settled over the congregation as mental gasps replaced “Amens.” The associate pastor had transgressed the unofficial line. You can represent God as vengeful or loving, gentle or angry, gracious or demanding, present or distant, but don’t…
There’s one use of the phrase “just your interpretation” that implies that no interpretation is better than any other. This is often used by people who have no idea how a particular text should be interpreted, but nonetheless feel like rejecting your interpretation in particular. Either they think all interpretations are equal–a common idea these…
Joe Carter has an excellent post looking at the Christian standards on drinking. What does one do with the behavior of Jesus, who did drink? Would Jesus be acceptable as a pastor or elder in our churches or as a faculty member in our seminaries? I am a member of a United Methodist congregation, and…
I’ve probably mentioned a few times that I studied under Dr. Alden Thompson at Walla Walla University (then WWC). He’s the one who taught me Hebrew, though actually I joined his class in the second year, and also introduced me to Aramaic. But more importantly, he introduced me to what I believe is a very…
I learned from my wife, a 12 year veteran as a hospice nurse, that it’s important to think and talk about end of life care and dying. We tend to avoid it, especially when we’re younger. First, it’s because death seems so far away. Surely we have 50, 60, or 70 years, at least, to…
