DBTS Web Articles
NOTE: This is the first in a two-part series on one of the most significant fake letters in the history of the church. This essay will introduce the reader to the letter, explain what it says, and show the historical and factual problems with the narrative. A future...
The origins of the Septuagint (hereafter, LXX) remain murky despite the evidence of its wide dissemination in the Hellenistic world.[1] Clues to its existence begin to emerge as early as the mid-second century B.C. Historical details, however, concerning the identity,...
Note: This post, as well as future and past posts concerning the Septuagint, are rough drafts for a potential upcoming book on the Septuagint. Accordingly, these posts will be removed at a future date. In regard to this article, it is the second of two which analyze...
Note: This post, as well as future posts concerning the Septuagint, are rough drafts for a potential upcoming book on the Septuagint. Accordingly, these posts will be removed at a future date. In regard to this article, it is the first of two which seek to analyze and...
By now most have heard the news that Joshua Harris is leaving his wife and Christianity. Harris is most well-known for his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. It was a popular book when I was in high school, though I never read it. (Someone I respected later told me his...
If you have not yet seen Dr. Mark Snoeberger’s recent article about the death of God in the death of Christ, I encourage you to consider it. Snoeberger’s argument there helps to refine and safeguard the way we think and discuss the death of Christ so that we are...
Not long ago, I was able to attend a conference, where Dr. Mark Snoeberger presented on the question of what may rightly be said about the death of God in the death of Christ. This paper, published in The Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry, is a written form of...
Christians are people of the book, but the word “Trinity” is not found anywhere in the Bible. So, is the Trinity a biblical doctrine? And if so, is it rational? What Does the Bible Teach? Though the Bible does not contain one verse that sums up the Trinity, it gives...
A unique resource has finally been fully completed, and I thought our readers should take note. Mark Ward, a graduate of BJU who now works at Logos, has worked for two years compiling a helpful resource for comparing the Greek text underlying the KJV (TR) with modern...
When I taught Old Testament Survey at a Christian University, one of my favorite assignments was having the students read Bel and the Dragon. This is a portion of apocryphal literature[1] which was written to be added to the text of Daniel (as chapter 14). I had the...
I’ve always had a soft spot for people who were so insightful and influential that they end up being credited with witty statements they never said. G. K. Chesterton is a great example of that phenomenon. Perhaps the most well-known apocryphal account is that...
Longtime friends of the seminary will fondly recall that Dr. Priest served on the faculty of DBTS from 1988 until his retirement in 2010. While Dr. Priest taught numerous courses in homiletics and Bible exposition, the focus of his teaching and writing ministry was in...
A few weeks ago I discussed the pro-life position in the DBTS chapel, including the biblical perspective of when human life begins—at conception. I found it interesting to see John Calvin promoting the view that human life begins at conception in an article he wrote...
A few weeks ago, I suggested that we should read larger portions of Scripture at a time. In this post, I want to consider a few questions pertaining to the issue: 1) why does it seem unnatural to read like this and 2) how, practically, can I read larger portions. On...
In my previous post considering Dan Wallace’s recent article discussing online vs. in-person education I concluded that, especially regarding theological teaching, in-person education is superior to distance education—all other things being equal. But rarely if ever...
A couple of weeks ago Dan Wallace wrote an article questioning whether or not online education is equal in quality to in-person education. (Tim Miller offered some of his thoughts on the article here.) I’d like to consider two of the issues he raises in comparing...
A few weeks ago, Dan Wallace wrote an article on the recent trend towards online theological education. I would like to summarize his points here, and then offer a few comments. You can read his entire post at this link (and I encourage you to do so). The main point...
It is not unusual to find arguments, both from atheists and Christians, that Christmas was started as an attempt by Christians to try to usurp/replace pagan festivals with a Christian one. Atheists make this argument out of an attempt to mock Christians and undermine...
In his classic work on preaching originally published in 1870, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, John Broadus spends some time noting the importance of persuasion in the application of preaching. “The chief part of what is commonly called application is...
How important is biblical creation for one's theology? Self-professed evangelicals increasingly say, “Very little.” A surprising number of theologians downplay its importance. Wayne Grudem, while agreeing that the biblical data favors young-earth creationism, argues...
This Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre, where over 900 people (members of the Peoples Temple) lost their lives in a group suicide-murder by drinking poisoned punch under the direction of their leader, Jim Jones. Since groups like the Peoples...
A few months ago there was a controversy from an exchange the Pope had with a young boy whose father had died. The boy wanted to know if his father, who was a good man but an atheist, was in heaven. The pope’s answer emphasized that God would not abandon someone who...
God is like someone who is always there for you; I don’t know, it’s like God is God. He’s just like somebody that’ll always help you go through whatever you’re going through. When I became a Christian I was just praying, and it always made me feel better....
I just want to encourage everyone of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God – I mean, that’s one way to look at it – we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we’re happy....So I want you to know this morning: Just do good for...
We live in a world that is religious/spiritual but not Christian. A few years back, I mentioned in class the Sermon on the Mount. The blank stares caused me to accuse them of laziness, until it was revealed that not one of those 32 students had any idea what the...
Most people you know believe in a god—since about 90% of Americans do. References to God are ubiquitous in our culture, but not everyone who talks about “God” is talking about the God of the Bible. Last time I introduced the idea of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, the...
What is the most common religion among teenagers and young adults today (and probably a large percentage if not a majority of adults)? Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD). This was a suggestion first made by Christian Smith (and Melinda Denton) in 2005 in their book...
A local pastor recently asked me to recommend a reliable Greek guide for working through a New Testament text. He was planning to preach through the text, and while he had plenty of commentaries, even commentaries based on the Greek text, he was looking for something...
Recently I rewatched most of an abortion debate I attended a couple of years ago at Wayne State University here in Detroit. The debate was between Nadine Strossen, professor of Law at New York Law School and former president of ACLU, and Scott Klusendorf, president of...
Analogies are powerful things, for they take something less known and put it beside something better known. The power of the analogy is that it allows the knowledge in the one realm to pass into the other, providing a "lightbulb" moment in many cases. But analogies...
While talking to an acquaintance yesterday about a thorny Christological question, I made the statement that Christ was 100% God and 100% human. Pretty standard stuff. My acquaintance agreed, stating that he also believed this to be true, adding the caveat, “by...
A number of years ago I stumbled on the following chart in Boa and Bowman’s book, Faith Has its Reasons.[1] The representation below has been modified in a few minor ways from its original depiction. And while the chart is not perfect (some belief systems hold to more...
A local pastor recently asked me to recommend a reliable Greek guide for working through a New Testament text. He was planning to preach through the text, and while he had plenty of commentaries, even commentaries based on the Greek text, he was looking for something...
(The following is my short review of the book. For a fuller treatment see the helpful review in our recent journal by Timothy A. Hughes) I just finished reading Advances in the Study of Greek by Constantine Campbell, a relatively recent work on the state of New...
The title of this post is exactly the same as a recent article on the Gospel Coalition web site. The author of the article explains the issue more fully in his first sentence. “It’s an understandable question: If we’re justified by faith and forgiven all our...
The Detroit 10/40 Conference is being held this Thursday and Friday in Hamtramck, MI. I had a chance during the pre-conference this week to give a talk addressing the importance of recognizing and evaluating worldviews when sharing the gospel and offering some...
I just got back from my church’s Good Friday service. Pastor Dave Doran preached from 2 Corinthians 13:4: “For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live with him in our dealing...
Occasionally you may hear an objection to believing in Christianity because it is simply myth. Those who make this objection are largely behind the times (the scholarly consensus moved past the idea that Jesus could be explained by Greek myth almost 100 years...
I have recently been interested in the relationship between the Septuagint (LXX, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) and the New Testament. Most commentators recognize that NT authors cite from the LXX more frequently than from the Hebrew. I believe the...
One of the more troubling mis-translations in the history of English Bible translation (at least in terms of its popular acceptance and impact) is the King James rendering of Luke 2:14 as “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Despite...
Is our world a simulation? That position has been expressed in the past.[1] Some of the more well-known theories come from Descartes and the movie, “The Matrix.” According to Descartes, it is possible that our world experience is the hallucination caused by a...
One of the benefits of being in Detroit is our proximity to Canada (you can get to Canada from our seminary in about 20 minutes). That allows Canadians to attend our seminary more easily (and allows us easier access to Canadian delicacies like poutine!) Today is...
A few weeks ago I asked the question concerning how much those committed to evangelical faith should engage with progressive scholarship.[1] The reader’s responses were helpful, pointing mostly to limited and purposeful engagement. Let’s say we follow this advice and...
A few weeks back I posted a piece on being conservative. In it I suggested that in every sphere of life there are foundational absolutes to be conserved. This is so because God is the immutable source and standard of all that is good and true and beautiful. There is...
Are science and religion/faith incompatible? The leading lights of the atheism revolution certainly believe they are: Christopher Hitchens: “All attempts to reconcile faith with science and reason are consigned to failure and ridicule.” Richard Dawkins: “I am hostile...
Life in the Spirit is the fruit of the 2009 Wheaton Theology Conference, where numerous scholars presented on themes related to spiritual formation. The book does not follow the format of the conference; instead, the “volume emerged from the conference’s dialogue...
Last week the satirical news site Babylon Bee made the national news with a post distasteful to some, mocking a health-and-wealth guru after she proved herself a fraud by dying. While that story was making the headlines, a less popular post titled “Conservative...
Last Saturday at the Cincinnati Zoo, a gorilla was killed to protect the life of a 4 year old boy who had fallen into the gorilla enclosure. The gorilla, named Harambe, was a member of an endangered species, with less than 175,000 western lowland gorillas worldwide....
As the baby boomer generation continues to age, the percentage of Americans at retirement age is expected to explode, with about 9000 reaching age 65 each day. “Forty-eight million Americans were age 65 and older in 2015, 18 percent more than just five years earlier....