The tragedy that occurred on Friday the 14th at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, CT, has left many families grieving this Christmas. Though the event would create incredible heartache at any time, its proximity to Christmas must only heighten the loss for the...
The problem of worldliness is an ever present issue for the church. While it is important to warn individual believers against worldliness, it is also vital for local churches to avoid this danger. Why do local churches so often blend in with the world? Local churches...
In the latest ed. of the Master’s Seminary Journal (avail. free online), Michael Vlach of The Master’s Seminary reviews Wellum & Gentry’s biblical theology Kingdom through Covenant (KtC). It’s one of the more thorough reviews of the book I’ve seen lately (see...
Christmas is associated with giving, and many organizations take advantage of the season to urge people to donate. Sometimes the giving is encouraged because it is the end of the year and the final chance to give for tax purposes. Often, though, the push to give is...
It is common today to hear people talk about a God of love, often connected with the idea that all religions teach about a God of love. In a recent panel Q&A, I was asked “Can we call Allah a God of love?” My brief answer was no, since he is not portrayed that way...
Recent decades have provided Christians with an increasing evaluation of and interaction with various world religions. The growth of immigration from non-Christian nations combined with a greater global awareness through travel and communication have confronted...
A couple of weeks ago I suggested that believers would benefit from occasionally reading older books. However, just because a work was written in a previous era does not mean that it’s necessarily worth reading today. In fact, far more old books exist that any one...
John Rhoads argues in a recent article that it was Josephus, not Luke, who misdated Quirinius’s census. The gist of his piece is that the Judas whom Josephus associates with a tax revolt in A.D. 6 (Ant. 18.4–23) is the same Judas whom Josephus says was killed a decade...
When John the Baptist, firstly, and then Jesus began announcing that the kingdom of heaven was “at hand” (Matt 3:2; 4:17, 23) they were announcing that the anticipated Israelite kingdom of OT prophecy was being immediately offered to Israel, and that their...
Despite many advances over the last century in archaeology and biblical backgrounds, together with a growing field of studies in biblical theology, consensus concerning ancient Israel’s perspective of the afterlife remains elusive. The view that conscious life...
These things happened to them as examples, and they were written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So says the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:11. The statement caps a rapid-fire sequence of references to the Old Testament in a timeless...
On October 31, 1517, a monk named Martin Luther (1483–1546) posted a list of topics for academic debate at the local university. With this relatively harmless act, Luther unwittingly launched a movement that would rend the religious fabric of Europe and would...
I’ve been reading, recently and with great interest, a blog series defending what is sometimes called the “traditional view” of Christian decision-making—the view that (1) God has an “individual will” for believers and (2) that it can be “discovered.” My intent in...
Millions of people each year participate in short-term ministry trips, with many now preparing for trips this summer. I have the privilege of leading a team from our church to Zambia this summer. We will be visiting a missionary couple sent from our church with the...
There have been two subtle but significant developments in our society in recent years in our response to people and ideas. The first is a growing inability to distinguish between ideas and the people who espouse them. Rather, debates about the merits of a particular...
A common tactic used in discussions about God and His actions is to claim that the other person is limiting God. It comes up in questions about creation (“I don’t limit God to just six days for creation like you do. I think He could use evolutionary processes and take...
Valentine's Day is this weekend (in case you have not been out of your house in weeks and missed all of the promotional reminders to show your love by spending money). In honor of this one day of love each year, I'd like to consider what love really is. A variety of...
One of the issues that still needs clarification in Christianity is how to weigh doctrines. Christians have historically recognized that certain truths are fundamental or essential to Christianity, while others have less importance. But how do we know which doctrines...
Earlier this summer I had a chance to read and review a new and increasingly-influential book on Hebrews by David Moffitt, assistant professor of NT at Campbell University Divinity School. The review’s slotted to be published in the Fall edition of Trinity Journal....
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood—Acts 20:28 What does Paul mean in his speech in Acts 20 when he says that God purchased the church with...
The suffering of Jesus Christ on the cross is at the center of Christianity. In Righteous Riches: The Word of Faith Movement in Contemporary African American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), Milmon Harrison notes that the prosperity and well-being...
Many college and seminary students are either preparing for another semester of school to start or have already begun working on classes. For some, this will be their final semester before graduation. Though some may have already determined the next step, others are...
Hebrews says “yes.” But, I’m not yet sure this means Christian Jews (Israel) won’t have their own special zip code in the new creation. That’s a possible inference from Hebrews, but it’s not clearly a necessary one. Quite a lot, of course, depends on what is meant by...
In Gal 3:10–4:7 Paul gives two reasons why works will not justify. One the one hand, he says that justification by works would change the terms of God’s covenant with Abraham. And, Paul adds, one simply isn’t allowed to do that sort of thing with an established...
Though summer is not officially over until September 22, the summer break has ended for schools and students are back in classes. Some are beginning their first year of college or seminary, excited for the journey ahead and overwhelmed by the amount of work each class...
If one aim of biblical theology is to describe how the Bible hangs together, then one useful place to begin is with Judaism & Christianity’s various summaries of Israel’s story, which “function as abbreviated commentaries on the story of Israel, and each passage...
Often reason and experience are pitted against each other in discussions of Christianity. Some Christians accuse others of merely intellectual Christianity, while others retort back about an overly emotional worship. Recently, I finished a classic work that, while...
Sometime earlier in the semester I happened across a piece by Bruce Longenecker titled “The Narrative Approach to Paul: An Early Retrospective.” Like many of you, I’d been seeing all sorts of books and articles with some combination of “Paul” and “narrative” in their...
In an earlier post I began to explore the notion of a “missionary mandate” for Israel in the Old Testament. In this and the next post I look at the background for this idea, namely, God’s concern for the nations in the OT. This post reflects the perspective of the...
When one thinks of the more egregious sins in our world today, we tend to think of sins like murder, assault, sexual sins, idolatry, and the like. Very few, I think, would place the sin of ingratitude high on this list. The Apostle Paul, however, does not share our...
The question of a pastoral “call to ministry,” reminiscent of God’s call of biblical prophets and apostles, has long been a issue with which ordination councils have been concerned. Many operate on the assumption that no one aspiring to the ministry may proceed...
The point indicated in the title to this post is ably defended by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. There, Paul indicates that if there is no resurrection, then Jesus is not raised, and if Jesus is not raised, then we are still in our sins. Such an argument makes little sense...
With Valentine’s Day just behind us, lingering questions remain about the concept of love. What is it? Is it a choice? An emotion? Some combination of the two? Or something else? My thesis today is that this perpetual debate continues because we have lost the salient...
The question of the absence or presence of the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament is a relatively new question in theology. Prior to the twentieth century, the question is almost entirely absent from the literature. In fact, one is hard...
In the past few weeks, a number of significant new commentaries have been released, and several more are on the immediate horizon. Below are a few of the more interesting additions. Douglas Moo, Romans, 2nd ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018) Originally...
In the Gospels Christ several times promises that the Spirit will supply appropriate words to his disciples in seasons of persecution (Matt 10:19–20; Mark 13:11; Luke 12:11) and will “remind” them of what Christ had told them (John 14:25–26; 15:26–27). Do these...
The fact that Christ speaks regularly and with vivid imagery of faith as having dimension (it can be little or great and can grow) and even as having material properties (it can be the size of a grain of mustard) leaves some imagining that faith by its nature is an...
I have been reading quite a bit about John’s Gospel recently. My reading has spanned the spectrum from conservatives to fairly progressive scholars (sometimes called "critical" scholars, but since a conservative can be critical in his engagement with Scripture, I have...
“You can’t legislate morality.” I see this phrase come up in often in discussions of the government’s role in moral issues. Whether debating previous laws against adultery or current laws about drug use or marriage, many people argue that the government has no ability...
Back when I was in seminary, one of my professors used to warn us seminarians to be neither “more pious than Paul” nor “more Christian than Christ.” Such a stance might win us halos on earth, but no crowns in glory. This instruction was never more vivid to me than...
The Satanic Temple of Detroit made the news recently with their unveiling of a Baphomet statue, a goat-headed idol the Knights of the Templar were accused of worshiping. Though they refer to themselves as a Satanic Temple, the members of the temple do not believe in...
Atheists are fond of boasting that they can be perfectly good people without God—that is, without needing the threat of some all-powerful Being punishing them for wrong-doing. Their argument can have two purposes. One is to counter the oft-quoted sentiment: "Without...
Someone who is going to be giving a talk soon on apologetics asked me to offer a couple of principles I think would help people to do apologetics responsibly. I thought I'd share my response here. Properly Present Your Opponent’s Position No one enjoys being...
I grew up with a semi-Calvinistic understanding of salvation. I knew that people were dead in sins and that dead people don’t do anything. But I did not understand much of how salvation actually worked. When I first heard someone teach on the effectual call (also...
When Justin Taylor released a blog entry last Wednesday defending a non-literal use of days in Genesis 1, and thus suggesting at least the possibility that the universe is quite ancient, both Ben Edwards and I sat down, without consulting, to write responses. While...
I’ve noted before the challenge of determining the importance of doctrines. One issue often debated by current Christians is the significance of young earth creationism (YEC). Under the impression that advocates of YEC place too much weight on the issue, many...
As the world becomes more global, the increasing awareness of and interaction with different religions combined with a change in the conception of truth has caused a reevaluation of Christian missions. Questions about the propriety of conversion, methods for...
Churches that are concerned for artistic excellence in worship will often employ unregenerate musicians to "lead in worship." Though these individuals do not know God, as skilled musicians they are able to offer fine presentations in the worship service. Is this a...
A few weeks back I offered a tribute to my dad for being a good parent to an unbelieving child (yours truly) by (1) being an agent of common grace, introducing me to “received laws” that God communicates generally to man in his image (language, logic, conduct,...