When I teach people about how to study the Bible, and especially when I talk to them about handling difficult passages, there is one category of passage that dominates: Violent and sometimes difficult to understand passages from the Old Testament. How can a God of love command the slaughter of thousands, even women and children?…
One of the long term projects I have for this blog is to take a brief look at the major passages of scripture that relate to inspiration or that are used in discussions about it. I’m taking these passages from various sources, including comments made on this blog, but also from personal conversations, books, letters,…
James McGrath (whose comments are well worth reading) pointed me to this post, and I responded here.
Via Exploring Our Matrix, I found this post at Think Christian. Many Christians believe that one should never question the Bible, especially if one is a Bible teacher. I know this to be true, because I’m a Bible teacher, and I question the Bible with some vigor, and not only do I not answer all…
. . . via if i were a bell, i’d ring. Check it out and the links.
This passage in 2 Peter is one of the most commonly cited in discussions of Biblical inspiration, along with 2 Timothy 3:16, Hebrews 4:12 and Psalm 12:6. One of the interesting things that I notice about them all is that they are often used as though they obviously say something that, on closer examination, they…
I encountered a few posts related to these to words, to which I’d like to call your attention. First, via Higgaion I navigated to this post about taking things on faith. The author, Dr. James F. McGrath, makes some excellent points on just what faith means from a Biblical perspective. One thing I would emphasize…
It’s about time for one of my periodic posts on the King James Version, signaled by comments from a KJV-Only advocate to some earlier posts. As is usual, the commenter does not interact with anything I say about this issue, but merely affirms the need for a solid foundation, provided in the KJV. In this…
Yesterday I wrote about the senses in which the phrase “bad theology” is used in the creation-evolution debate and in particular on the question of ID. To call something “bad theology” generally requires either a challenge to the internal logic of the statement, or a reference to a particular faith community, because there is no…
Since the texts for Proper 24C / Ordinary 29C / Pentecost +21 (October 21, 2007) include 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, which in turn includes 2 Timothy 3:16-17 on which I have written a considerable amount before I thought I’d simply provide links to some earlier material. First, there are two key articles on my Threads blog,…
