It’s not really a new thing, but in a number of conversations recently, both in person and online, I’ve been noticing agendas. Someone will make a comment or say something in a conversation that really doesn’t seem to make sense in context, but then if you consider a different context, you’ll suddenly see that the…
In the video, Dave calls this simply “The Word of God.” I’m embedding it at the end of this post. One of my observations in talking to people about their churches and church programs is that they find the first moment when a book or program differs from their situation and take one of two…
Yesterday I wrote a bit about using prayer and Bible study as a starting point for change. The problem is that it’s very easy to pray and study the Bible in such a way that it makes you a worse person. I’ve found a relatively simple way to determine whether I’m doing this myself: If…
Before I dig into this series organized around Dave Black’s book Seven Marks of a New Testament Church, I want to make a couple of off-the-cuff remarks. Over the last few years I’ve come to believe that we have two key elements that need to be changed, but more fundamentally, we keep talking about the…
I had hoped to do a bit more writing on how we interpret the Bible before tonight’s discussion. In diving into teaching a bit on eschatology, I have come to feel a bit like someone who has encountered one of the versions of the certification test for senior generalists, or the ultimate final exam. (You’ll…
James McGrath posted a rather humorous piece this morning, titled The Fundamentalist Interprets Scripture (Sheep and Goats). I think he makes an important point here, but it is my belief that we all have our ways of avoiding what scripture says. The liberal finds things out of date. The conservative finds ways of categorizing texts,…
Last night after my discussion of eschatology, in which I mentioned that we tend to discover what we’re looking for in scripture, I returned to the house. Now I think this warning is important. We need to check our questions. On my hub site, henryneufeld.com, I use the slogan “helping you find the right questions.”…
I opened my mailbox today to be greeted by a slick flyer inviting me to discover what the Bible really says about a variety of things. Among the the questions I’m told I can get answered: What is the future of our country during this economic downturn? What does the Bible really say about the…
That’s a very broad title, but I do want to look at the connection. One of the places where we, as Christians, find the most disagreement is in our study of the Bible. In my view, there’s a good reason for this. The Bible is a complex book. Yes, one can find common themes, but…
When I started Energion Publications just over 10 years ago, my primary interest was in Bible study materials. My goal was to get the people in our churches to study the Bible more, and to do so for themselves. My complaint about much of the material available was that it was often shallow and repetitive,…
