Featured Posts
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Sorrow Like My Sorrow – Lamentations 1:12
Can we really understand the suffering of another person or they ours?
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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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All Saints Day – Cycle B
Believe it or not, I do regularly read the weekly lectionary passages. Finding time to write about them is another matter. This week I’m going to start by providng some links to previous discussions of lectionary passages. First, I have a write-up on Isaiah 26 which discusses the structure of the entire chapter. I think…
Ben Witherington on Women in Ministry
Ben Witherington is taking on Biblical arguments against women in ministry in an article titles Why Arguments against Women in Ministry Aren’t Biblical. (HT: Dr. Platypus.) I personally find his first and second arguments quite good, while I tend to be less convinced by his arguments regarding the specific texts. It seems to me that…
Purpose of Discussion Section
Watch here for announcements related to this book and links to other information on the web related to the study of the book of Revelation.
Hebews 6:1-6 in Selected Translations
Polycarp is comparing God’s Word to the Nations with some other translations and has come to Hebrews 6:1-6. I must confess I prefer the way the NLT translates this passage, but GW is not bad. I’ve written on the passage before: Hebrews 6:4-6: Can Those Who Fall Return? and then St. John Chrysostom on Hebrews…
Totally Dependent
I’m the guest blogger at Grace Through the Desert today with a post entitled You are Totally Dependent based on Ephesians 2:8-10 and a few others scriptures, especially my favorite Psalm 104.
Christian Carnival CCXCIX Posted
… at The Minority Thinker.
Ed Brayton on Fox News Bashing
… here, and for the most part I agree with him. I think there is a certain justification for media bashing, simply because journalists keep expecting us to regard them as unbiased when they are not. But the bashing isn’t unbiased either … and so on ad infinitum. One of the key skills required today,…
Welcome 32 New Planets to the Known Universe
They were obviously there before, but they’re more important because we know about them. I do love this sort of discovery. (See Greg Laden’s Blog for more.)
Facing Detours
Having made plenty of detours in both my physical and spiritual life, I really appreciated this post from Pen of the Wayfarer.
If You Don’t Know Greek and Hebrew
… you don’t know Greek and Hebrew, and there are certain things you cannot do, like, well, reading Greek and Hebrew. I don’t think this means you can’t read the Bible, or that your opinions don’t matter, but it’s a simple fact. When people pretend to know the Biblical languages, as they often do using…
Halloween Book Burning and Barbecue
OK, I’m very late on this one and you can find much more information at The Church of Jesus Christ where Polycarp has been following it. Here’s the video: I should, but can’t, resist posting my own YouTube video beside this one: Why I Hate the KJV: I guess you can tell what I think.
Of Church Signs and Breaking Legs
I’m currently working on the final stages in the release process on two books, one of which is titled Megabelt (the other is Christian Archy by David Alan Black, but it doesn’t feature in this post), and is a fictional account of life in the Bible belt. The lead character, Gil, doesn’t much like the…
Is 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 an Interpolation?
Well, somehow this post came out blank. There really was something there. Really! Here it is, rewritten: Philip Payne has written a post on the Koinonia blog defending the idea that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is an interpolation (HT: Evangelical Textual Criticism). I have discussed this issue before (Does Gordon Fee Discard Part of the Bible),…
A Devotional on Grace
My wife chose to use an old devotional on grace that I wrote for today’s devotional on her list. I don’t usually do this, but the devotional touched my heart again, as it did when I wrote it. The devotionals I write always hit me first!
Blogging/Essay Contest
My company is sponsoring a Christianity related blogging/essay contest, with prizes to include gift cards from Barnes & Noble. Detail are on the Energion Publications blog.
Christian Carnival CCXCVIII Posted
… at Bible Archive. Check it out!
Prayer in a Public Meeting
If I were invited to offer the invocation at a government event at which people of any faith should be welcome, I would have to refuse. This is a stand that has been misunderstood by both supporters and opponents of separation of church and state. I have been told that I lack the courage of…
Informed Bible Study and Creationism
Bruce Alderman discusses a recent post by the Internet Monk on the topic of how learning to take the Bible more seriously (my summary) moved him away from young earth creationism. I empathize with the process. I find it interesting that people think that somehow the theory of evolution drove me to a less literal…
Why You Should Read the Previous Post
I had just finished posting the previous note, Talk about the Method, when I went back to my Google Reader and found this YouTube video, complete with a call to a five year commitment to God, via Polycarp: Now if people had any knowledge of method, or were at least practiced in thinking about method,…
Talk about the Method
When I teach Sunday School classes, as I often do, there is nothing more likely to lull people to sleep than a discussion of hermeneutics. I get a great deal of attention talking about history. People are very interested as I explore some different interpretations of a particular Biblical passage and where and when those…
FTC Disclosure Rules for Blogs
Over on my company blog I indicated that these rules were generally common sense, as in if you make money off of something you should disclose the fact that you do. Of course, you can’t count on the government to use common sense even in implementing common sense. Thus somehow if print news organizations get…
John Hobbins on Exegesis
John Hobbins has produced an excellent post on exegesis, The unacceptable limits of traditional exegesis, in which he calls us to keep the various senses of the text together, or perhaps in tension. At some time I would like to extend this discussion to the use of the various disciplines we normally bundle under the…
The Death of Good Judgment
I’ve really been wanting to write something about this for some time, but I haven’t, and don’t, have time to do it justice. But I saw a couple of other posts that begin to address some of the issues. My deep concern is with ideas such as zero tolerance polices, the great push to make…
Making a Sensation of the Ordinary
John Hobbins has already commented on this, and I agree with what he had to say. But my attention was called back to the issue from a Christian Post item in my reader account this morning titled First verse in Bible is mistranslation, say scholar. There are just so many things wrong with that headline,…