I had hoped to do a bit more writing on how we interpret the Bible before tonight’s discussion. In diving into teaching a bit on eschatology, I have come to feel a bit like someone who has encountered one of the versions of the certification test for senior generalists, or the ultimate final exam. (You’ll…
James McGrath posted a rather humorous piece this morning, titled The Fundamentalist Interprets Scripture (Sheep and Goats). I think he makes an important point here, but it is my belief that we all have our ways of avoiding what scripture says. The liberal finds things out of date. The conservative finds ways of categorizing texts,…
I’ve been thinking a bit about this common statement, and I think the answer is both “yes” and “no.” And therein lies a significant problem, if not several! I recall an online discussion some years ago with a gentleman who maintained that one should always take what he called the plain meaning of the text….
I get this question quite frequently: What are you trying to accomplish? If it’s not presented as a question, it’s presented as an assumption. Here are some major options: My goal is to advance a liberal theological agenda, i.e., to make people more liberal by getting conservatives to listen to or read liberal opinions. My…
Last night after my discussion of eschatology, in which I mentioned that we tend to discover what we’re looking for in scripture, I returned to the house. Now I think this warning is important. We need to check our questions. On my hub site, henryneufeld.com, I use the slogan “helping you find the right questions.”…
Tonight I’m giving myself permission to ramble in my presentation. “How will that be different?” you ask. I would imagine largely in that I won’t feel guilty while I ramble! There are few areas that demonstrate differences in views of biblical inspiration and interpretation than eschatology, whether we mean end-time events or our own end-of-life…
I opened my mailbox today to be greeted by a slick flyer inviting me to discover what the Bible really says about a variety of things. Among the the questions I’m told I can get answered: What is the future of our country during this economic downturn? What does the Bible really say about the…
Last week was the closing session in my online study of the gospel According to John using Herold Weiss’s book Meditations on According to John: Exercises in Biblical Theology. I now turn to a new subject, eschatology, and will start with the book Eschatology: A Participatory Study Guide by Edward W. H. Vick. The reason…
At the beginning of the year I began a journey through the gospel According to John, using as my guide the book Meditations on According to John by Herold Weiss. I began this study largely for myself. I admit it. My motivation was selfish. I wanted to force myself to stick with the study week…
In the comments to my announcement for Thursday night’s interview with Dr. Herold Weiss there was a comment that included a question. I missed it and failed to ask it during the interview. I e-mailed it to Dr. Weiss, and he sent me a response. Since this ties into the topic of the interview, I…