All posts relating to religion, including those on the relationship of religion to other fields, such as science and politics
At church today our pastor (Dr. Wesley Wachob) made a couple of points I’d like to repeat here. They may sound disconnected, but they both derived from the scripture lesson, Matthew 23:1-12. The common theme was “remember” as he tied us as a congregation into the history of the people of God. This was tied into…
I’ve had a rather intense week and haven’t done any blogging, so as I use the extra hour I got as we switched to standard time, I’m going to talk about Sunday School. Last week we discussed considerations of hearing. I’m going to include an extract below, with the subheading “Testing the Claim” from that…
I get disturbed when I see people around me disturbed by the latest Bible mystery, or obscure interpretation of prophecy. These things sell books, and bring in offerings, but I don’t think they produce better followers of Jesus. I don’t have a problem with discussing difficult or controversial passages, but the church has been living…
I’m posting this in the middle of the action, but Energion author Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. is blogging (and teaching) through Hebrews verse by verse. He’s in chapter 10, so follow it back to the beginning first if interested.
I’ve said quite a few times that I think that the job description we have for a pastor in most churches is ungodly. It’s also inhuman. The pastor can’t do all of that, so many times they fail. Those who succeed do so through extraordinary talents, gifts, and dependence on the grace of God. But…
I’m an advocate of dialogue in everything, certainly including matters of faith. Sometimes, however, dialogue is confused with seeking. There’s nothing wrong with seeking, but it is not identical with dialogue, though they do overlap. Dialogue can and should occur between people who do have an idea what they believe. It’s hard to have an…
We had an interesting discussion today in Sunday School. We were discussing the 3rd chapter of my book When People Speak for God, titled Messengers – God and Prophet. The questions at hand were just what is prophecy, who are God’s messengers (with a side-order of how can you tell) and how does getting a…
I couldn’t end this run of posts on 1 Thessalonians 1 without commenting on the content of the passage: Paul’s prayer of thanks. (See posts on structure and translation survey.) I think it’s important to notice what Paul is thankful for. He is thankful first for the fact that they received the Word and that…
My wife reminded me after her own study of 1 Thessalonians 1 today that those who don’t read Greek don’t necessarily see the same divisions or indicators of divisions. Translation does often involved changing the sentence structure and might require changing the division of paragraphs. I noticed that the commentary Dave referenced (see this post)…
Dave Black commented on the structure of this passage, and I’ve been trying to work with it a bit. I do a loose form of phrasing when I study, in which I break pieces of the passage in some detail at times and leave others less chopped, so to speak. This morning, my Sunday School…
