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Dr TK Dunn on the Importance of the Old Testament
This is an extract from a longer interview, which I will also embed. I think Dr. Dunn has some valuable comments on the relationship of scripture and what it means for our study. And here’s the full interview from which that was extracted.
Fences: Mending or Rending
The following is a sermon I presented at the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Pensacola on September 11,2005 and originally posted here on September 13, 2005. I’m reposting it because when I went to look for it, I found that the original post had somehow been truncated, and also because there is a one word at a…
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The Most Annoying Theologian I’ve Never Read
. . . is Wayne Grudem. Well, not quite true. The most annoying theologian is Peter Ruckman of the Pensacola Bible Institute, and I have read some of his stuff. I’ve also read articles by Grudem, and I wouldn’t come close to excluding him from Christianity, so I guess I have read him and he’s…
Textual Critism on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
I’ve posted something on this over on my Threads blog, titled Does Gordon Fee Discard Part of the Bible?. That post is a response to part of a interview with Wayne Grudem by Adrian Warnock. I think it will be of interest to readers of this blog for the textual criticism aspects, though less so…
Truth, Pluralism, and Absolutism
There has been a rather interesting, if somewhat confused, discussion over on Locusts and Honey about pluralism and truth. The reason I’m not commenting there is that most points have already been made in that thread and I want to go off on a tangent. I believe there’s a substantial problem with many discussions of…
And I’m not . . .
. . . an evangelical, that is. Jason Woolever posted an interesting entry several days ago about what it means to be an evangelical and I’m finally getting around to commenting. It’s not that I have a problem with Jason’s post. It’s more that I have had some problem finding a good, current definition of…
Australia Moving on Stem Cells
Australia is reversing a previous stand and allowing therapeutic stem cell cloning. Read the full story on Yahoo! News.
Can a Translation be Completely Accurate
There’s an interesting thread in the Religion Forum right now, What is a Biblical Translation?, which goes into the issue of whether one can create a 100% accurate Bible translation. Of course, the answer is “no.” If you want 100% accuracy, you need to go to the source language. But even there you bring yourself…
Hiding the Evidence about Human Evolution
This one has been going on for some time now, but it is still an active fight of which we should remain aware. Kenyan Pentecostals are trying to prevent the display of Kenya’s famous humanoid fossils in the national museum along with their evolutionary explanation. (See the ABC News story here.) The major complaint is…
Excavators in West Bank find Early Christian Church
According to a story in the Washington Times credited to the London Daily Telegraph, excavators in Israel have found a very early Christian church. They are now presented with the standard conundrum of preservation vs. digging. Hopefully a compromise can be found. This would be a site of great interest for settling some issues about…
Politicians Working Together
Do we really want our politicians to work together? I caught a few minutes of an interview with former Senator Danforth of Missouri, who commented that “the people” want their government to work, they don’t think it is working, and that they would like their politicians to work together. Now I like Senator Danforth, which…
Prayers for Bible Study
One of the key elements of participatory Bible study that I advocate is prayer with Bible study. Brian at RealMinistries.org has posted a number of prayers for Bible study from church fathers. I recommend reading this post.
Polar Moon Camp
NASA has announced plans for a polar moon camp which would be a start to full time living on the moon. I got this story a number of different ways, but I want to provide a special hat tip to The Evangelical Ecologist, who has commented on the potential value of this plan and technology…
The Problem with the Drug War
This story about Afghanistan and the opium harvest, which has reached a record high this year reminded me of one of the problems with reporting the drug war. We tend to report on the huge amounts of drugs that are stopped. What we don’t comment on so much is how many drugs are getting through….
Methodist Blogs Weekly Roundup #94
It has been posted aby Allan R. Bevere. Check it out!
Reflecting on the Flood
In a previous post I commented on the two flood stories, so instead of covering each and every point of the flood story again here, I’d like to reflect just a bit on the story of the flood. I’ll resume my verse by verse commentary toward the end of Genesis 8. The flood story is…
The Danger of Unchanging Truth
Recently, I’ve written a bit about the difference between science and theology. One of the key differences is that science expects to change, whereas if theology is not assuming it is founded on bedrock, it is usually looking for some bedrock. Religious people often criticize science on the basis that it changes too often. Its…
Ignorance and Opinion Polls
Well, I’ve written about a couple of posts by Joe Carter over on the evangelical outpost when I disagreed with him, so I ought to write once in a while when I agree! This morning he posted a truly wonderful write-up on opinion polls. It has been said that “figures lie and liars figure,” but…
Objecting to Obama
It appears that some evangelicals don’t like the idea of Barack Obama speaking at a church. He’s been invited by Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to speak at a conference on AIDS. The reason? He supports abortion rights. (See the story on MSNBC.com.) I wanted to call attention to this on two levels. First is…
The Camp and the Cloud
Yesterday and today I wrote devotionals for my wife’s devotional list that drew lessons from the movement of the cloud and fire over the tabernacle in the wilderness. These devotionals are not truly exegetical exercises, but rather draw on the approach I call “listening to the conversation.” The command here is clearly directed to Israel…
Interpreting Away what is Clearly Taught
In this week’s Christian Blog Carnival #CL, now posted at Brain Cramps for God, I found an excellent post from Amanda on Imago Dei titled The Limits to God’s Grace This goes back to an article by Bart Campolo on which I commented about a week ago in my post Conceptual Idolatry. Amanda has written…
Christian Carnival CL
Christian Carnival CL has been posted at Brain Cramps for God. It’s well organized and there is some good stuff there as always. I’ve already commented on one good post over at Threads from Henry’s Web. Go, read, enjoy!
Measuring the Speed of a Meme
Acephalous wants to measure the speed of a meme so he can report it at the MLA meeting. Now Well, I’m supposed to explain what’s going on here, and persuade all my readers to also link to the post, even going so far as to invent sob stories. Acephalous will be measuring links to his…
Isaiah 26: Praise and Lament in Trouble
Update: I forgot to tag the places the New Testament quotes (none in this case) or alludes to this passage. In my series on Biblical criticism I discussed the division of Isaiah 24-27 into various segments and discussing their form. In that article I suggested taking Isaiah 26 as a unity even though it would…
Gail Riplinger and Isaiah 26:3
This is in the “I just couldn’t resist” category. Stating that Gail Riplinger’s “New Age Bible Versions” is poorly researched is to cast aspersions on shoddy research everywhere. Today as I was preparing a post on Isaiah 26 for this blog (which will be in the next entry), I recalled her use of Isaiah 26:3,…
We Killed Less People than They Did
I am often annoyed by the things that the Traditional Values Coalition does. When they call for a boycott of Walmart I don’t expect much damage to be done except to the general reputation of Christians. But today I got an alert e-mail from them that strikes me as celebrating Christmas by stirring up hatred….