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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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Psalm 51 in The Voice
I’ve been including The Voice Bible in my lectionary reading for the last couple of weeks. My early impression was that it was fairly good as a paraphrase, though the italics, while fairly consistent, were a bit distracting. I thought they were unnecessary. I was wrong. I have yet to do any sort of objective…
Scot McKnight on Dominion Theology
Well, actually he’s summarizing Paul C. McGlasson. I recently wrote about hearing Dutch Sheets speak and mentioned what he had to say about the term “dominionism.” There is something that concerns me here, and that is that Rushdoony and those who agree with him are lumped in with folks like C. Peter Wagner, and of…
Real vs. Hypothetical Evil
In an article on the Huffington Post, Aaron Taylor suggests a variant of the famous saying, All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. His variant? “Sometimes evil triumphs not when good people do nothing, but when good people fail to distinguish between hypothetical evil and real evil,…
The Other Extreme on Explanation in Translation
Yesterday I complained a bit about the explanation that The Voice provides to readers, informing them that since Bathsheba had just completed purification after her period, Uriah couldn’t be the father of the child. Today I was reading the same passage in the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), and there we get the opposite. In…
Italics in The Voice – The Story of Bathseba
Last week I mentioned that while I found the italics in The Voice more logical than I usually do in the formal equivalent translations that use the device (e.g. KJV, NKJV, NASB), I still found them annoying in the text. One goal of a dynamic equivalence translation is generally readability, and for me the italics…
Italics and The Voice
I’ve always regarded the use of italics to indicate words that “aren’t in the Greek” one of the sillier notions in translating. Considering there are no English words in the Greek text, one could put everything in italics. On the other hand, if an English word isn’t in some way justified by the Greek (or…
Psalm 89: When Eternal Doesn’t Last
This week’s lectionary (RCL) texts for this week (Proper B11) form an interesting set, complete with the occasional weird cut-off for the scripture. For example, 2 Samuel 7:1-14a chops off the last part of Nathan’s message to David, the part about both the eternal covenant and the potential for God’s discipline. As I read this,…
Shades of Outrage but Comments Closed
I pointed earlier to a post by J. R. Daniel Kirk responding to the post at The Gospel Coalition by Jared Wilson. Wilson has now responded to some of the outrage generated by his original post. But generally his new post says we shouldn’t read his excerpt as saying what it actually says, but should…
Responding to TGC on Sex and Power
Well, I’m not responding. I found someone who wrote a better response than I could manage. That is J. R. Daniel Kirk. The payoff quote: When Jesus came and showed us what Christian manhood was all about, he did not conquer, but allowed himself to be conquered; he did not pierce, but allowed himself to…
Measuring Liberal Christianity
There have been a number of posts around the web regarding the decline of liberal Christianity. It got started by Ross Douthat in the New York Times. There have been a number of good responses, including Rachel Held Evans (which connected best with me), Chaplain Mike, and Diana Butler Bass. All these responses are good….
Inconvenient Passages Flowchart – Funny!
… on Exploring Our Matrix.
The Fanatic Illustrated
In a previous post I used the relationship between essentials and non-essentials to group ways in which Christians (and Christian groups) operate. One of these approaches to doctrine was labeled “the fanatic” (see image). With some help from Joel Watts, I’ve found a good illustration of this, and it’s The Berean Library, which lists as…
Pundits Are Generally Wrong
I always thought so, but now it’s official. (HT: Allan R. Bevere.)
Loosening One’s Doctrine of Scripture (Resources)
I just completed a post on my Participatory Bible Study blog which includes a couple of pages from the book When People Speak for God. I’ve been connecting one’s understanding of inspiration and extended reading of the Bible for some time. In my view, we have tended to focus on inerrancy and simultaneously on the…
Reading the Bible Frequently and Thoroughly
I love it when someone famous says all the things I like to hear about Bible study. One thing I regularly say to Sunday School classes or to groups I’m invited to teach is that if they were looking for a five minute a day method, they invited the wrong person. It takes more than…
Shifting Theology
Click the image for a larger view Last week I was talking about doctrinal distinctives, and today Scot McKnight has a post very close to that topic. He’s more specific, talking about pastors who shift theology. I think he would have done better to illustrate this post with something other than pastors who have become…
On Doctrinal Distinctives
Dave Black links to an article regarding the recent statement on the traditional Southern Baptist understanding of the doctrine of salvation. Craig Benno comments further. You may well wonder what a United Methodist is doing commenting on this particular issue. Is it any of my concern whether Southern Baptists accept Calvinism or not, or which…
Glorious Stories
… or “My Wife Reposts Me.” Every so often I write a devotional for my wife’s devotional list. She’s been faithfully writing a devotion each weekday (with a very few short breaks) for around 10 years now. You can find here at Jody’s Devotionals. She’s a master of the short devotional form, while I’m not,…
Link: Great 4th of July Story
As the son of naturalized American citizens, I really appreciated this story from a guest blogger on The Agitator. My own citizenship is derived, as I was a minor when my parents were naturalized, but I distinctly remember going with my parents to the ceremony in Atlanta, GA where they took the oath and became…
Jury Nullification in New Hampshire
Since I will always favor justice over strict adherence to the letter of the law (and I believe the two frequently collide), I’ve always kept an eye on stories about jury nullification. Nullification is a fact of life, though not all that frequently is it done openly and explicitly. There is rather little that a…
Discovering What Young Adults Want
I hear (and participate in) many discussions about what young adults want from the church, usually in the context of asking why the youth and young adults don’t attend church services or the events we put on for them. I’ve arrived at an age where waitresses at restaurants ask me if I want my senior…
Trusting God less than the Government
Or I could say, I think we trust the Gospel (God’s plan), less than we trust the government. Yesterday I posted something from Dave Black to Energion.net (with permission), and e-mailed several of my friends (and Energion authors) to see if they might have a comment on it. As I’ve been thinking about the post,…
Christianity Today on Short Term Mission Trips
Christianity Today has a good article giving multiple views on short-term mission trips, specifically those that are travel-intensive. I like getting the multiple views. As someone who has participated in and even led mission trips that were “travel-intensive,” I would suggest that leaders and organizers should give serious attention to these evaluations. Don’t take just…
Quote of the Day: God’s Word and Our Words
I’m working on editing Creation: the Christian Doctrine by Edward W. H. Vick. It’s quite an enjoyable task. I regularly learn new things while reading Dr. Vick’s work. In this case he’s talking about knowledge of God. He has already contrasted this with knowledge of the natural universe. We, as finite creatures, cannot by normal…