Featured Posts
-
Sorrow Like My Sorrow – Lamentations 1:12
Can we really understand the suffering of another person or they ours?
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
Social Notes (see all)
All Posts
Believing Stuff is not Enough
My early morning reading brought two things together that led me to this post. The first was a blog entry by Shane Raynor on The Wesley Blog, titled What’s Missing from Our Christianity?. In it Shane makes a very important point: Many of us intellectually believe all the right stuff. Or at least most of…
Creation by Command
In my earlier post on the Biblical Doctrine of Creation, my second element of a Biblical doctrine of creation was that God creates by simple command, in other words, God’s word and will is reality. This is commonly used as an argument against theistic evolution, and even in some cases against old earth creationism. Duane…
Creationist Boilerplate
I was reading the entry The Ignorant Credulity of Creationists on Dispatches from the Culture Wars, where Ed Brayton quotes the following from a creationist response to Tiktaalic roseae, and then comments: . . . or those who are more of a six-day creationist stripe, the finding poses no threat either. Discovery Institute scientists have…
Belshazzar Plays Pretend
Read the story of Belshazzar’s feast in Daniel 5. The stories of the book of Daniel all have something to do with worship. Often we read them as unconnected stories about Daniel and his friends, but they have a common theme. Daniel 1 shows us the faithfulness of Daniel and his friends to their God,…
Appeal to Numbers and Supposed Authority
When I was in the U. S. Air Force, I had to attend a human relations training program. The instructor was enlisted, but very proudly informed us of his two master’s level degrees. During the course of his presentation he brought up a particular bumper sticker, which happened to be one I had on my…
God’s Nature in the Natural World – Take 1
Study Guide Q2: How much of God’s nature and will can be determined from nature? How do the natural and moral laws of God differ? This question spans this less and the next, which is about God as creator. I suggest doing it as I’m doing it here and taking a look first from the…
Do you know these things?
From the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: Why is the sky blue? Facts you should know. The quiz doesn’t provide scoring, but the answers are at the end. Bar that I must say I mentally fudged the amount of water (thinking “about 3/4” instead of the precise 71%), and the “sky is blue question” when I just…
Cute Bunny Rabbits, Eggs, and Resurrection
Is there a resurrection in your future? In your near future? Often concerned Christians complain about the pagan background of Easter, and such practices as Easter eggs, bunny rabbits, and all the signs of spring. Pagan religions in many countries have celebrated spring and the new life that it represents. Fall and spring festivals celebrate…
Hebrews 2:1-4: Such a Great Salvation
[Note: The reason I am jumping from 1:1-4 to 2:1-4 is that my study guide is thematic rather than verse by verse. Hebrews 1:5-14 is part of the reading for lesson 5. I am not including a post on textual issues in this passage, because there are no substantial textual issues.] Because this passage is…
Transforming the Cross
[The following Good Friday meditation is extracted and slightly adapted from my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic, pp. 17-22. This post was truncated at some point in the history of this blog. This is a restoration of the content on January 6, 2018.] There might be many reasons why…
Ernest Lucas on Daniel
In an earlier post, Dating the Book of Daniel, I mentioned that I had ordered Ernest Lucas’s volume on Daniel in the Apollos Old Testament Commentary series. I now have received, read, and returned that volume, and I thought I would post a few notes. I have to admit that I continue to be puzzled…
What’s So Good About Democracy?
Is democracy the right thing for every country in the world? Is America the best example of this? Should we make it one of our policy goals to implement democracy in other countries? Newsweek’s Christopher Dickey doesn’t like America’s example of democracy, and he says so at length at The Mechanics of Democracy (Newsweek on…
Why Doesn’t God Speak Directly?
Note: I strongly recommend that if you are taking my class in Hebrews, or who are following my study guide through the book answer the study guide questions before reading this entry. The purpose of the thought questions is to provide an opportunity to think. These are just some of my own thoughts on the…
Evolution, Theology, and Respect
Not Ashamedof the Gospel:Confessionsof aLiberal Charismatic In my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel, I comment that God respects us: God Respects You Some of my more theologically inclined friends may be questioning this one, but God created humanity a little bit less than God (Psalm 8:4), and he allows human beings to make their…
Resistance to Evolutionary Theory Confirmed!
Just two posts ago I commented on the resistance to evolutionary theory and what I think are the actual reasons for it. Today I came across a blog that truly confirms everything I said from the other side. The blog is called The Sheep’s Crib. In a post titled EVOLUTION: Croco-fish can’t crack Chritian commitment!….
Literary Criticism
To conclude the content part of my series on Biblical criticism, I want to discuss literary criticism. Much of the practice of literary criticism is similar to genre and to a lesser extent canonical criticism. Essentially, literary criticism involves forgetting about the historical and theological aspects and simply reading the Bible as literature. One can…
Resistance to Evolutionary Theory
Why is it that some people resist evolutionary theory so stubbornly? Many times I have used the argument that evolutionary theory is more complex than creationism, and that we are asking people to go against their intuition in favor of the evidence. But the more I think about it, the less I think that is…
Witness without being a Pest
Over on Philosoraptor, Carol Roper has an open letter to theists entitled Sick and Tired of God Talk. Carol talks about how tired she is of various standard questions from theists, general theists who want to convert her, and in this country one would assume mostly Christian theists. Carol is an adamant atheist, and she…
Hebrews 1:1-4: Jesus and the Word
We now start on the meat of Hebrews 1:1-4. I will refer back to this verse a number of times and expand on comments I make in this entry, but I want to provide a fairly clear, point by point summary of what we can learn from these verses. Introductory Notes Let me display the…
Does Integrity make you a Wuss?
DaveScot over on Uncommon Descent thinks that having integrity and good judgment makes one a wuss. Of course, unless he also has the guts and integrity already displayed by the folks over on Telic Thoughts, he’ll have to come up with something to say, and I suppose this is as good, or as bad as…
Kudos to Telic Thoughts
Telic Thoughts has issued a very forthright statement and retraction regarding certain comments they made about Dr. Eric Pianka. Since I had linked to them as one of my sources in my entry Christians and Defamation, I think it is important that I take note of this retraction and the very good intentions (and may…
Hebrews 1:1-4: Translation Issues
In some passages, I may divide discussing translation issues into one section on how a passage is rendered into English, and another on the textual issues, but this passage has only one textual issue of any consequence. Textual Issues In verse three we have the following general options: “when He had by Himself purged our…
New Bible Study Blog
I’m creating a separate blog as I start to post Bible studies online. Threads from Henry’s Web is a place for me to post general commentary and background information on religion functioning in the world. As I got ready to start blogging through the book of Hebrews, I started to believe that it would be…
Introduction to Hebrews
Many introductions to Hebrews spend a great deal of time on the date, authorship, and audience of the book. I’m not so sure that these questions can be answered with any degree of certainty, so I tend to focus on what we can come to understand from the structure and content, and the theology we…