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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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Repeating Adventist Mistakes
Harold Camping seems to be repeating the mistakes made by the early Adventist movement. While I disagree profoundly with Seventh-day Adventist eschatology, I don’t hold that history against the church. Good and interesting movements can result from mistakes, but only if you correct those mistakes. Now consider Camping. He predicted the rapture in 1994, and…
Might It Be Significant
…that a post I wrote Oct 31, 2008, titled The Advantages of Stoning False Prophets, is tied with one other as the most read post this week?
An End-Timely Dilemma
A couple of months ago my company, Energion Publications, began distributing two previously published books by Edward W. H. Vick. As I normally do, I planned to publish my reflections on these books here. Time has been in short supply recently, and I haven’t gotten to them. But fortuitously, one of the books is The…
The Way That Seems Right
(This post is written for the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival [Road].) The mission trip was off to a bad start. I had unwisely followed some “money saving” advice from a travel agent, which landed me in Atlanta with less than an hour to change planes, and the flights had been booked separately,…
Philippians: Two Groups That Threaten Community
I haven’t blogged much, recently and I may go back and look at some earlier, lessons, but I wanted to quote something we’ll be looking at in class this morning. This comes from the forthcoming study guide to Philippians by Bruce Epperly. He has just described two groups, the first those identified in 1 Corinthians…
Dave Black Has a Question on Ministry
You can find the full context at The Jesus Paradigm (extracted from Dave Black Online). But here’s just the question itself: When will appeals for vocations to the ministry end? And when, in their place, will the church encourage all of its members to seek God’s will for the area of ministry in which they…
Book Notes – Revelation: The Way It Happened
When I encountered Lee Harmon in cyberspace, or more precisely he encountered me, and I learned that he’d written a book about Revelation, I was immediately hooked. Besides, Revelation – The Way it Happened is such an interesting and suggestive title. Let me warn you that, as usual, this will be less a review and…
Link: Five Reasons to Study Barth
I’m linking to this in honor of my friend and pastor, Geoffrey Lentz, who can’t complete a sermon without a Barth quote. (HT: Dave Black Online).
John Wesley on Biblical Languages
Do I understand Greek and Hebrew? Otherwise, how can I undertake, as every Minister does, not only to explain books which are written therein but to defend them against all opponents? Am I not at the mercy of everyone who does understand, or even pretends to understand, the original? For which way can I confute…
Theme Updates
The WP Framework theme has been upgraded and broke my child theme, which included a few hacks. The new one looks like I can do even better things with it, but it will take me some time to code. In the meantime, I’ve put most of my normal widgets back, though all in the right…
Helps and Keeping Up Your Greek
Dave Black has another good paragraph on keeping up your Greek: I will not go into the mechanics of keeping up with your Greek this summer. For this, you can refer to my book Using New Testament Greek in Ministry, published by Baker Book House. Con Campbell and a host of other Greek teachers will…
Monumental Hodge-Podge Biblical Studies Carnival
It has been concocted and posted at Dr. Jim’s Thinking Shop. It is monumental. And a hodge-podge. Like I said.
The Best Bible Version is the One You Read
Across the front cover of my book What’s in a Version? I placed the slogan that forms the title of this post. You might think it’s a strange thing to put on the cover of a book. I’ve used it in class as well. I’ve received more criticism for that one line than for anything…
The Risen Christ is Know Initially by His Wounds
From the forthcoming study guide to Philippians (from my company, Energion Publications), in commenting on Philippians 1:27-30: Even now in our time, we can take confidence in Paul’s assertion that God is with us and that, in life and death, and celebration and persecution, Christ sustains us. We are resurrection people. But, our lives are…
There are Things Worth Contending For
And some that aren’t … After much of what I heard about Paul in school, which was really rather a lot, I think one of the most important things to remember when reading Paul’s letters is that they are letters, and that Paul writes pastorally. He is not writing systematic theology. On the other hand,…
Fear, Beliefs, and Questioning
I’ve often said that I think people who become angry when their beliefs questioned are actually less confident of those beliefs, rather than more so. But that’s a pretty broad and inadequate statement, I think. I was discussing this with my wife recently, and we were wondering why neither of us get annoyed with people…
Of Lead Codices and Crucifixion Nails
Actually the headline is just hype. I’m not going to say much about them. By the time things settle down to where I think I have something to say, somebody else has already said it. I guess I’m just slow. But here’s a great quote from James McGrath at Exploring Our Matrix: Even while the…
How David Ker Made Me Read Jim West
David Ker has written a book, and it has lots of pictures of hippos in it. Since my very favorite song is “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas,” this means that I truly adore the book. Besides, I’m only about a decade late taking notice of it. Now I haven’t actually read the book, but…
If Your Spouse is Abusing You, Get Out of There
A video from John Piper is making the rounds (HT: Tim Ricchuiti). I’m not going to comment directly on the video. Rather, I think it is worthwhile to give my answer to the question asked. What does a woman who is abused do? (Note also that I’m aware there are men who are abused, but…
If We Were Doing Our Job in the Church
… then perhaps nobody could say this: But if four years of college undo 18 years of parenting and religious affiliation, perhaps the faith community’s tenuous hold is the problem, not the particular place outside its bubble where that hold evaporates. Consider the believers we’ve seen in history. With all the persecution that Judaism and…
A Misuse of the Word LITERAL
One of my pet peeves is the way “literal” is used in discussing biblical interpretation. The problem is not just that the word has changed meaning; rather, it is now scattered all over the map. “Literal” comes to mean anything from “seriously” to “severely out of context” much more often than it means “literal as…
Clergy in Philippians 1:1
It’s been awhile since I made a comment regarding the Orthodox Study Bible. In preparing for my study of Philippians with my Sunday School class, I read the OSB notes on the book. Regarding the phrase episkopois kai diakonois in verse 1, it has the following note: This is the only epistle in which St….
Philippians Study
I’m going to have the privilege over the next eight weeks of teaching from the book of Philippians using advance copies of a new study guide. The study guide was written by Dr. Bruce Epperly, and will be released by my company, Energion Publications, in July. This will be the next release in the Participatory…
On Missions and Priorities
Three days ago I wrote a post on our priorities and the purpose of the church. Today over at Energion.net (belonging to my company, Energion Publications) we publish a post by D. Kevin Brown titled Missions – What about It?. He’s asking some of the same questions along with a few more.