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What Is Biblical Literacy?
We complain about it, write about it, claim it’s important or even critical, design programs to create it, but what is it? I don’t mean that none of us know what we mean when we say “biblically literate” or “biblically illiterate,” but do we all mean the same thing? I don’t think we do, and…
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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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Experiencing the (Baptism of the) Holy Spirit
This is a topic where I tend to make just about everyone uncomfortable. Long time readers may recall a previous discussion of speaking in tongues, and my own experience of it. Those who expect me to be intellectually oriented and rational are uncomfortable with mystical experiences, and many who are comfortable with the mystical experiences…
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Review: Kayla May and Kerry Sandell present Collected Stories
I took the opportunity to see this play last Saturday night (March 30, 2019) as part of the SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) program coordinated by PenArts. At first I didn’t intend a review, because I don’t have much business reviewing plays. My only experience was in high school. I don’t even watch movies or…
New Book on the Trinity
This is by Chris Eyre, chief editor since this past summer of Energion Publications. It’s in our Topical Line Drives series. Buy (Featured Image by Philip Barrington from Pixabay)
Starting Leviticus
I mentioned in my post about completing the study of Romans that our next book was Leviticus. This was by choice of the group, but it is surely driven somewhat by the number of references I have made to Leviticus. While I experienced Leviticus as a child, going to a Christian school where we read—really…
What Does It Mean to Call Jesus Lord
A commentator noted that I was not all that helpful in my post yesterday, since I hadn’t made any effort to say just what it would mean to have Jesus as the center of a doctrine, nor what it means to call Jesus Lord. In response, I obviously had to create a new, more ambitious…
Finished Romans Class
Earlier this evening I finished my Wednesday night class on the book of Romans. For the study of Romans 16, I used a sermon by Dr. Fred Craddock off of YouTube. Here it is: I have never found anything that is quite like this as a presentation on Romans 16. Dr. Fred Craddock was indeed…
Evaluating Doctrines regarding the Holy Spirit (Pneumatology)
I have encountered a few questions lately regarding the work of the Holy Spirit, particularly the manifestation(s) and gifts of the Holy Spirit as they may be observed in a church setting. There is always a problem with evaluating theology based on the visible actions of God, because this gets confused with identifying God’s actions….
Pious People Popping Platitude Pills
Tacky title, eh? I don’t apologize. I had fun constructing it. The other day someone asked me whether there were any scriptures I liked to go to when I was having problems. I gave the answer immediately and then explained, but I’m going to do the opposite here. I’m going to explain and then tell…
A Grasshopper on the Circle of the Earth
Isaiah 40:22 speaks of God sitting on the circle of the earth and the inhabitants are as grasshoppers. There is an interesting twist on idolatry that I think happens very frequently, and it makes a problem for people in understanding and accepting the doctrine that we, as humans, cannot do good of ourselves. Normally we…
Of Isaiah 40 and Grasshoppers
Last night in our Tuesday night group we discussed this rather interesting chapter, one that I believe expresses the basics of the gospel message well. Now I don’t mean by this that it mentions the name of Jesus or even directly predicts anything about his ministry. There is some material here that is used of…
A Morbid and Boring Christianity
The quote above comes from chapter 1 of S. J. Hill’s book, What’s God Really Like?, and I’d like to spend some time with this, looking at it from different angles. The first angle is one of worship. I was in a church committee meeting some years back where a room full of people were…
Making Theology Accessible
One of my concerns as a publisher is making the material accessible to everyone who is interested. This means learning to communicate ideas about our faith and about God clearly and effectively. I am certainly not a master of this goal, but I believe it’s always worth pursuing. One person who has mastered it, I…
On Violence in the Bible
Allan Bevere reviews L. Daniel Hawk’s new book The Violence of the Biblical God. Learn More I cannot resist calling attention to a much earlier book by my undergraduate advisor and mentor Alden Thompson, which it happens I publish! It’s Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?. Learn More
Link: Expansion of the Universe
How Did The Universe Expand To 46 Billion Light-Years In Just 13.8 Billion Years? This relates to one of my favorite statements: Everything is a matter of perspective. Not to mention the apostle Paul’s statement: “If anyone thinks he knows something, he doesn’t know it as he ought to” (1 Corinthians 8:2).
A Different View on Hezekiah
I will now do on my blog what I did last night for my Tuesday night group. Contradict my previous post. Here’s the idea in a Monty Python sketch: What I did was quote a scholar whom I respect, and in fact who has been my companion through much of my study of the book…
Hezekiah’s Horrible Prayer
We’ll be continuing our discussion of Isaiah 36-39 tonight in my Tuesday night group, hopefully finishing that section. Last week, we looked at Hezekiah’s prayer for healing. For those who may not remember, it’s a short one: “Remember now, O LORD, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole…
Respect, Disrespect, and Conscience
I have seen a number of posts suggesting that those who won’t recite or stand for the pledge of allegiance are disrespectful, or perhaps just badly behaved. Good people, by implication, will say these words and join in the group. My view of this is formed by my upbringing. I am a United States Air…
Sin and the Church as Community
In what he confesses is a long post, but is still shorter than my normal post, Dave Black discusses how to translate the Greek word ekklesia, both in terms of an English word (he chooses “community”), and in practice. I’ve been discussing this in connection with the question of dealing with sin in the church….
But Did God Approve of That?
Last night in my Tuesday night group we were discussing the story of Hezekiah in Isaiah 36 & 37, in which King Sennacherib of Assyria attacks Judah, and things get pretty dire. Following a sneering message from the Assyrian king, Hezekiah, at the beginning of chapter 37, tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth, and goes…
Spiritual and Physical Decluttering?
I wonder if there’s something ironic, or perhaps just odd, about working on the interior layout of a book on Spiritual Decluttering while this is behind me? Actually, there’s less clutter than there used to be. I’m turning storage space into usable office space, and I’m about half done.
Philippians 2:1-11, Romans 12, and the Nature of Christian Community
That’s a fairly ambitious title I gave myself, but the content is a bit less ambitious. When I found that I’d be teaching from Philippians 2 in Sunday School, I commented that if someone couldn’t teach a class from Philippians 2:5-11, they should just give up teaching. That’s probably a bit harsh, but the passage…
Is There Ever a Good Reason to Leave Your Church?
I was reading this article on the reasons people leave, titled 5 Rather Startling Reasons People Leave Your Church, and while it is by no means the worst offender, it reminded me of an interesting characteristic of church growth/health books and articles. The problem is this: We, as leaders in the church, tend to assume…
A God That’s Cool
In the introduction to his book What’s God Really Like? S. J. Hill tells the story of a student who announced at the end of a term in a class he taught, that she had discovered that God was cool. I don’t know how you react to that, but the moment I read that line…
The Danger in Appealing to the Miraculous
A friend’s post on Facebook got me thinking about this verse: I said to them, “If anyone has items made of gold, bring them. And they gave them to me, and I threw them in the fire, and out came this calf.” (Exodus 32:24, my translation from the LXX) I can’t help but think that…