On Merry Christmas from Last Year
Considering my previous post, I thought I’d call attention to a dialog I wrote for my Jevlir blog on this whole Merry Christmas thing.
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On Christians Insulting Atheists
A couple of months ago I got a forwarded e-mail which purported to tell about a court case in Florida. An atheist was said to be complaining about not having a holiday like various varieties of religious folks, and got the ACLU to take the issue to court. The judge explains that he does have…
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The Trials of Mike Licona
I actually didn’t know who Mike Licona was until a few weeks ago, but I’ve discovered that he is a Christian writer who is a strong supporter of the historicity of the resurrection and generally defends the historicity of the Bible. Unfortunately for him, he recently suggested the possibility—just the possibility, mind you—that Matthew 27:51-53…
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How Charismatic Am I?
Adrian Warnock is working on a spectrum for determining just how charismatic one is in belief and practice. His initial test seemed to make people more charismatic than they actually are, or perhaps than they consider themselves to be. I took the test, and came out strongly charismatic in belief and mildly charismatic in practice….
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Imperfections in Scripture
Lee at The Dubious Disciple generously and kindly reviewed my book When People Speak for God. In that review, he included the following sentence: A discussion of inerrancy follows, and how Henry’s recognition of the Bible’s imperfections has not disturbed his reverence for God’s Word. Now before I discuss this line, let me emphasize that…
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On a Soterian Gospel
“Some folks have reshaped the Bible and the gospel so that it is driven by the plan for personal salvation. The Greek word for salvation is soteria so it is accurate to refer to such thinkers as soterians and their gospel as the soterian gospel.” Thus Scot McKnight begins his discussion of salvation and judgment…
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Book Review: Learning God’s Story of Grace
A great deal of the Bible comes to us in the form of stories, and even the parts filled with propositions have their background in the story of God’s action in history. I believe this is central to the way we should read and apply scripture, and thus I am delighted to have the opportunity…
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Careful Where You Point Your Bible
At the beginning of the month I wrote a post about pointing texts at yourself first. I think it’s important to do so both in order to avoid misinterpretation or unbalanced emphasis, but also because in communicating the message you will do better in expressing something that has convicted you first. The temptation, of course,…
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Atheist Holiday Ads and Christian Freedom
The Christian Post reports that the American Humanist Association has some holiday ads out. These ads have messages such as “Bias against atheists is naughty, not nice.” Such a message seems pretty straightforward to me. But the Christian Post writer chose to quote Matthew D. Staver: Mathew D. Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty…
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Through Difficulties to Ministry
Shauna Hyde is one of the authors at Energion Publications, so I admit to bias, but I really did like this write-up in the Charleston (WV) Gazette-Mail. Her book, Victim No More! is mentioned in the article. I’m often critical of newspaper articles, not so much for being negative, but for being shallow. I think…