18
Mar
2014
Slouching Towards Salem
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The worldwide web is a staging area for mobs. It offers us sound definitions of and warnings about mobs (Wikipedia calls them “individuals in a group to acting together without planned direction…in schools, demonstrations, riots, and general strikes, sporting events, religious gatherings, everyday decision-making, judgment and opinion-forming”), then supplies its users with the greatest forum... Read More
14
Mar
2014
How Do Modern Muslims Interpret the Qur'an?
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Islam is the second largest religion in the world, with approximately 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. There are over 2.7 million Muslims in the United States. The percentage of Muslims in the U.S. population is projected to rise from 0.8% in 2010 to 1.7% by 2030. Yet most Americans, including Christians, are largely unaware of what... Read More
11
Mar
2014
What King David Said about Judas Iscariot
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In Acts 1:12-26 Peter says that Judas Iscariot had to be replaced (see Acts 1:16, 21). The vacancy his defection (and suicide) created could not be left open, otherwise Scripture would be broken. After all, what Judas had done and what, then, the remaining apostles had to do was prophesied, according to Peter, by David... Read More
8
Mar
2014
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
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Among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, there is a rather troubling document dated from the year 1 B.C. It’s a letter written by a husband to his wife. The husband is out of town, and the wife is apparently expecting to deliver a child in the near future. Here’s the text: Hilarion to his sister Alis, many... Read More
5
Mar
2014
Re: Rice Lectures
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Just a reminder that the Rice Lectures are now just two weeks away on Wednesday, March 19. Pastor Peter Hubbard, who is the teaching pastor at North Hills Community Church in Taylors, SC, will be presenting three lectures based on his new book Love Into Light: The Gospel, the Homosexual and the Church. The lectures will run... Read More
3
Mar
2014
An Excellent Counseling Resource for Men
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If you have spent time counseling men in the areas of purity and pornography, you have probably, like me, struggled to find a resource that is biblical, straightforward, pastoral, and pure itself. In my opinion, Heath Lambert has written such a book, titled Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace (Zondervan, 2013). This book is... Read More
28
Feb
2014
Zero-Sum Economics and Church Planting
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I’ve visited sub-Saharan Africa a few times and have started to get a handle on the grassroots economic theory that dominates the local villages: zero-sum economics. In brief, traditional African culture understands that there is a fixed amount of wealth available at all times, so if one villager becomes wealthy, he necessarily does so at... Read More
24
Feb
2014
Is Jesus Presently Reigning?
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In a handful of places the NT interprets Jesus’ resurrection (+ ascension) as his exaltation to God’s right hand, which is to say, as his fulfillment of David’s prophecy about the coming messiah in Ps 110:1: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” See, for example, Heb... Read More
22
Feb
2014
Augustine’s Version of “Teach a Man to Fish”
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Students in my Medieval Church History class recently read Augustine’s book, On Christian Teaching. As I was working my way back through this little volume, I was struck by a statement Augustine (354-430) makes which seems to have application to those who would be preachers and teachers of God’s Word in the local church. Augustine... Read More
19
Feb
2014
Now That the Smoke Has Cleared: A Summary of Christian Responses to the Nye/Ham Debate
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It’s now been two weeks since the big debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye. Everyone who watched has an opinion about who won and why. And most all of them, it seems, have blogged about it. Everyone who didn’t watch the debate also has an opinion about who won and why, and a lot... Read More