When I was in the Air Force, I submitted a performance report on someone I supervised. The lieutenant who was the next person to endorse the report returned it to me, informing me that I shouldn’t use the passive voice so much. Problem was, I hadn’t used a single passive clause in the report. What…
A good book review is not one that says nice things about the book, although nice is nice, so to speak. I occasionally read a positive review that makes me wonder whether the reviewer read the book. There are likewise negative reviews that make one wonder. As a publisher, I must take all these in…
Dave Black just posted a note on the authorship of Hebrews which brings up an important point: Fact checking. This comes up all over the place these days. It’s so easy to just quote something you’ve heard or to reference a secondary source when a primary source is available. As an editor I’m reminded of…
In today’s Christmas sermon our pastor told a story he’s told before, but with a slightly different slant, and that reminded me of a number of things I’ve been thinking about over the last couple of weeks. Let me be clear that I’m not criticizing the pastor for telling the story with a different slant….
On a variety of subjects I regularly hear about how people ignore the plain teaching of scripture. I’d like to take away the phrases “the Bible clearly teaches” and “the plain teaching of scripture” from conservatives, while taking “we don’t take that literally” away from liberals. Then maybe we could get around to discussing the…
This may seem like a simple question. A better one might be, “Why not?” Some Prefatory Remarks Seventh-day Adventists (SDAs) are often misunderstood, which complicates the issue. If I had transferred my membership from a Presbyterian church, for example, to a United Methodist congregation, it’s unlikely anyone would ask me why I maintain relationships with…
We’re going to talk about process spirituality, Advent, and Christmas. Fun!
Dave Black has some interesting thoughts on syntax in the Greek New Testament and its importance for exegesis. I’ve extracted them to JesusParadigm.com so as to have a permanent link (by permission). I became a convert to the importance of linguistics in understanding biblical languages when I read James Barr’s The Semantics of Biblical Language…
Each year I’m saddened and yes, annoyed, by the supposed war on Christmas and responses to it. Every time someone can’t set up a manger scene on public land, or is even forced to share the public space with other groups, there’s an outcry. It’s a war on Christmas! Never mind that there are, in…
93 percent An annual U.K. survey asking people whom they trusted most found nurses absurdly credible, with 93 percent of people trusting them. [The Guardian] {My source: FiveThirtyEight.com} This is for my sister, mother, wife, several aunts on both sides of the family, and a bunch of friends who are nurses. Also for my daughter…
