I get a daily (most days!) e-newsletter from Rabbi Evan Moffic. I find his thoughts inspiring and helpful. I want to quote his letter today in full. You can learn about some of his books through his Amazon.com author page or my Aer.io page for him. Henry, My grandfather passed away in 2007 at age…
I’m currently reading the book of Acts for my morning devotions and today I read chapter 6. That’s a nice, short chapter! The disciples find that there are complaints about distribution of charitable works and they decide they shouldn’t be distracted from the Word in order to wait at tables (and other such things). The…
School is starting, and so we have the regular drumbeat of comments about prayer in school. One of the most common, used at my church today, is the comment that as long as there are exams, there will always be prayer in public schools. Which is, of course, quite true. Also, largely irrelevant. Opponents of…
I publish a couple of books that use Acts of the Apostles as a source for principles to guide the 21st century church. I publish such books with a certain amount of trepidation, as it’s very easy to apply material piecemeal, which results in discovering that the biblical book in question tells us to do…
I used to use Bill Mounce’s introductory grammar in teaching Greek, and I appreciated his attention to linguistics, though I generally wanted more. (I’ve switched to Dave Black’s Learn to Read New Testament Greek for those rare occasions when I have the opportunity to teach Greek. I’m probably prejudiced as Dave is a friend and…
This post by Eddie Arthur from Kouya.net makes and illustrates clearly an important point, one that is missed by many Bible students. You can’t just grab glosses or even definitions from a lexicon/dictionary and apply them to the verse of your choice.
In a sign either that the human species is less doomed than I had thought, or that the heat death of the universe is more imminent, FiveThirtyEight.com reports that The Chicken Dance was banned at 23.1% of wedding receptions last year. The value of this datum is somewhat diminished by the fact that they found…
There has been some fuss recently about praying for political leaders, in particularly, regarding an image of folks praying for President Trump. I think that many prayers for and against leaders mistake the value that prayer has. Further, complaining about what other people pray is largely a waste of time, and again reflects a misunderstanding…
We’ve had some discussion of Romans 13 over on the Energion Discussion Network, with contributions from David Alan Black, Elgin Hushbeck, Jr., and Steve Kindle (via comments). The question is just what it means to be subject to the “higher powers,” and when or whether a Christian can ever be involved in a revolutionary movement….
Our pastor at Chumuckla Community Church started a sermon series on the book of James. This provoked me to look again at Bruce Epperly’s little book Holistic Spirituality: Life Transforming Wisdom from the Letter of James. Here’s a sample: Despite Martin Luther’s misguided dismissal of James as “an epistle of straw,” due to James’ emphasis…
