I'm a cynic and a pessimist by nature. Usually, if "everybody is doing it," I don't. I can't tell you whether it's my sin nature, my metacultural bent, or a regenerate distrust of fads and mania in general. And maybe in this case it's my affinity for the Pittsburgh...
The parent church of DBTS, Inter-City Baptist Church, hosts a conference every second January to stimulate and cultivate interest in foreign missions. The next Student Global Impact (SGI) conference is just two weeks away. Scheduled strategically to accommodate...
Some bad effects of the pietistic heritage of fundamentalism and evangelicalism tend to make conflicts worse: An all-or-nothing view of people and ministries. A misguided view of spirituality affects how others and oneself are viewed. Being “wrong” on some issue is...
I’ve decided to start a mini-series of blogposts on historically freighted phrases/clauses/mantras that have been detached from their moorings and have become cliché in contemporary Christian-speak. Most of the time these lines are intrinsically innocuous (i.e.,...
As questions in the ongoing Trinitarian controversy become more refined, the “pieces” of the broader discussion are coming under greater scrutiny. One of these appurtenant issues is the locus of the will, that is, whether volition is seated in one’s substance (i.e.,...
Tomorrow, we will release the 100th episode of Theologically Driven. The first episode was released on October 21, 2021. Since then, we have done several series on the podcast. One that is particularly beneficial for our day is the series on Fundamentalism and issues...
Beyond doubt, the most hotly debated assertion of the Apostles’ Creed is the descent of Christ to “hell” or hades (ᾅδης/inferos/inferna). This line conjures images of Renaissance frescos and medieval ambiance. One wonders whether the tenet reflects apostolic teaching...
Paul described how he ran with purpose, “Run in such a way as to get the prize….Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly….No…I make [my body] my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize“ (1 Cor...
The Greek article usually has minimal influence on the interpretation of a passage, but sometimes its presence is quite meaningful. 1 Peter 4:14 is one of those times. It is debated, however, and our goal in this short blog post is to consider the best interpretation...
Please allow me to share three anecdotes before making some comments about how our assumptions can affect our interactions. All come from the early 1990s when I was working on a DMin at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS). How Long Did It Take…? One day, during...
A few weeks ago I drew attention to the AI movement and its complications with education. Namely, to what degree can students use AI and still consider the product their own work. Just recently, ChatGPT launched and now has over one million users. If you try to use...
Perhaps you (like me) have had grand plans of working steadily on projects or sermons only to find that it is Saturday night, and tomorrow is the deadline. Modern ministry is full of distractions. It is challenging, perhaps now more than ever, to keep the main thing...
The words Reformed and Baptist mean something and they are and always have been mutually exclusive. So begins one of Scott Clark’s several diatribes on the paradox of Reformed Baptists, the latest of which hit the fan a couple of weeks back...
The fact that all truth is interconnected and sourced in the Triune God means that God in Christ may be rightly connected to every datum of truth in the whole universe. Many argue that faithful preaching, in fact, will make such a connection in every sermon:...
I attended Bible College in the 1980s and seminary in the 1990s. The time I spent earning my Master of Divinity at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary still stands for me as the most grueling four years of my life. But I had accidentally prepared for it for years,...
One of the challenging questions that churches and biblical counselors face is, “Should we counsel an unbeliever?” Jay Adams used to call counseling an unbeliever “pre-counseling.” The reason for his clarification was that he defined biblical counseling (or nouthetic...
This article is adapted from Bryan Murawski's book, "Preaching Difficult Texts of the Old Testament" (Hendrickson, 2021). Someone once said, “The devil is in the details.” This trite idiom encourages you not to underestimate the details in a...
When we think of Jesus, what comes to mind? My thoughts immediately turn to His sacrificial love for me on the cross. I think of hymns and texts of Scripture that talk about Jesus being a friend. Hymns like: What a Friend we have in JesusJesus, Savior, blessed...
“Fifty years ago many colleges and universities and theological seminaries were devoted to the truth of God’s Word. But one by one they have drifted away, often with all sorts of professions of orthodoxy on the part of those who were responsible for change.” It sounds...
“The Christian does not desire going to heaven; they desire to go to Christ, and wherever He is, there is heaven.” The twitter post caught my eye, and left me perplexed. Had the statement been that the Christian does not merely desire to go to heaven,...
A few years back I made a proposal that we replace the label “literal translation” with a better one—originalism—a term that has been robustly defined away from competing hermeneutical ideas in the secular/legal sphere. For decades the dispensationalist has dealt...
No one hates grace, do they? Who would ever be offended by a free gift? After calling a tax collector to follow Him, Jesus invited tax collectors and sinners to eat a meal with him (Mark 2:15–17). Jesus was showing grace to the outcasts. Tax collectors and sinners...
In my last blog post I addressed the irrational distrust that is increasingly plaguing religious and political conservatives. Specifically, I suggested that we ask of our theories about, say, mask mandates, social distancing, and vaccines, “Why would all these people...
About 25 years ago I was privileged to take several seminary courses that focused on the science of textual criticism. Textual criticism was really important in those days because epic battles were then raging over texts and translations as the King James Version lost...
I teach a class on research and writing here at DBTS. I don’t consider myself a gifted writer, but I’ve tried to be a student of good writing, and I’ve had some draconian editors along the way who have helped me in no small measure (HT: Andy Naselli). People sometimes...
The intersection of Acts 5:29 and 1 Peter 2:13 encapsulates a tension facing many churches today. Harmonizing these texts is not a simple task. Still, it can be done. The simplest harmonization goes something like this: “We must obey the government unless the...
Dr. Dunham recently had an article published in the Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament. Here is a snapshot summary, along with a link to the article. Intertextual links between Deuteronomy and Ecclesiastes have begun only recently to garner...
I was recently reading a book designed to answer questions posed against Christianity.[1] The book is good, and I recommend it, but I want to use one of the statements in the book as a jumping pad to a point the author was not directly making. Rebecca McLaughlin was...
Over the years, dispensationalists have been called antinomian for many reasons. Mostly it’s been because of our tension with the so-called “third use” of the Mosaic Law: the appeal specifically to the Decalogue to inform Christian righteousness. Most...
With the current restrictions on gatherings in Michigan we were unable to host our commencement ceremony this year at DBTS. While we have invited our graduates from this year to participate in our 2021 ceremony, we would also like to take some time to recognize their...
In light of the challenging time, I have been writing a series of posts designed to help us think through how to do evangelism during the pandemic. You can see the previous posts in the following links: Part 1, 2, 3a, 3b, 3c. Step 4: Keep the Conversation Going The...
This is a really strange time for ministry generally and evangelism specifically. Over the last few weeks, I have been writing a series of short posts designed to aid us in evangelism during this unprecedented time (See Step One, Step Two, Step 3a, and Step 3b). Step...
This is a really strange time for ministry generally and evangelism specifically. Over the last few weeks, I have been writing a series of short posts designed to aid us in evangelism during this unprecedented time (See Step One, Step Two, and Step 3a). Step 3b: Tell...
This is a really strange time for ministry generally and evangelism specifically. Last week, I began to develop a series of short posts designed to aid us in evangelism during this unprecedented time (See Step One and Step Two). Step 3a: Tell the Lost about Christ:...
This is a really strange time for ministry generally and evangelism specifically. Last week, I began to develop a series of short posts designed to aid us in evangelism during this unprecedented time (See Step One). Here is a second installment. Step 2: Tell the Lost...
Our pastor quipped on Sunday (3/22) that, during the present crisis, we should spread the gospel, not the virus. This is a really strange time for ministry generally and evangelism specifically. Over the next week or so (while we’re all staying put in our homes!), I...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
When the King James Version was published in 1611, there were actually two printed editions, with 450 variations in the biblical text (Norton, Textual History of the King James Bible, 173–79). These are commonly called the “He” and “She” Bibles, from their respective...
At the beginning of the year I mentioned in a post that in September of 2011, Liberty University Biblical Studies Symposium held a discussion on the topic, “Which Bible Translation Should I Use?” featuring Dr. Ray Clendenen (HCSB), Dr. Wayne Grudem (ESV), and Dr. Doug...
This is the provocative title of a post by Stan Porter, well-known NT scholar, challenging Dan Wallace's claim that a 1st century copy of Mark has apparently been discovered. We reported on Dan's claim in a series of posts here, here, here, and here. You can read...
Most of us are familiar with the KJV's reporting of Paul's declaration in Rom 1:14, "I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise." We are commonly told that the motivation for Paul's willingness to give himself to the...
With this post I finish my critique of the framework interpretation of the creation week. As I stated in the first post, three major theses support the framework view. Having looked at the first and second arguments, I will focus on the final one in this post. The...
In my previous post, I asked if churches should abandon the King James Version for a modern English translation. I answered, "Yes," and suggested there were two main reasons. The first is the inferior Greek text from which the KJV was translated, the Textus Receptus...