Archive for July, 2007
Regrowing Roots
One of the many books I am reading right now is They like Jesus but not the Church by Dan Kimball. It was recommended to me by Brad Andrews of Missouri Baptist and relevintage. I can’t say enough good things about this book. It acts primarily as a diagnosis of the Church [...]
Objections to Calvinism Part 5 of 5
This is probably not going to be the last post in this series, because I want to address the idea of “divine rape” in God’s effectual call and irresistible grace. This fifth post is going to be on Predestination and Prayer. In Part 4, I argued that Calvinism does not hinder prayer, but that God [...]
Something Very Disturbing
Watch this video and see if you think people are going too far with their eschatology, and profiting from it.
H/T: Ben Witherington III
The Flow of Prose
The Bible contains beautiful poetry. However, that poetry is easily stuffed by literal translations. What flows well in one language sounds clunky and disjointed in another. Reminding us of this point is Sam of unrelated ramblings in his comparison of different translations of Job 20:1-3.
NASB
TNIV
ESV
Then Zophar the Naamathite answered,
“Therefore my disquieting thoughts [...]
Hermeneutical Methods
As many of you know, I do not have much formal theological training. My formal training has come in the areas of philosophy and the study of religion, or better stated, the study of how people are religious. I took a few theology classes at Central College of the Bible and the rest [...]
John 1:1 and the New World Translation
If you ever wanted to understand how John 1:1 is to be translated “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” when the Greek reads kai theos en (e = ate) o logos, then here is an article that gets into the technical reasonings behind this [...]
Objections to Calvinism Part 4 of 5
Today I want to discuss the next objection on my list, Election and Evangelism. Let me review the series so far. In the first post, I tried to distinguish historic, five-point Calvinism from hyper-Calvinism. In the second post, I showed that election in a Reformed soteriology is not a source of pride and arrogance, but [...]
2 Peter 2:1 Exegeted.
I came across this interesting article at Alpha and Omega Ministries. It considers 2 Peter 2:1 and whether or not it teaches one can be bought by Jesus and still lose their salvation. The exegesis of this text is very well done and worth the read. I commend it to the readers here to consider, [...]
The Need for an Aramaic Mass
While I am content to let Catholics do what they will in their pursuit of God, I think this is a bitting turn of phrase by the ever-popular Dominic Crossan, speaking on the recent Latin Mass controversy.
. . . . In terms of Roman Catholicism, our ancestors in faith began with Aramaic, changed to Greek, [...]
Story of the Day
I don’t know if you have heard this story or not but I was very encouraged by it today.
One year at the Feast of the Tabernacles, the Pharisees decided to retry a previous trick on Jesus while the Lord and the twelve were in Jerusalem (John 8:1-11). Again they had caught a prostitute in the [...]
Beauty - in Structure and in Life
I give you the Church of the Transfiguration, Kizhi, Russia.
While I maintain that buildings are not what makes the Church, this is a most beautiful structure. There has always been something fascinating in the beauty of man’s creations seeking to honor the Creator with the work of their hands.
I came across [...]
Objections to Calvinism Part 3 of 5
I am moving ahead full steam in my series on “Objections to Calvinism.” The next three posts in this series will deal with objections that I have personally encountered, mostly at Theology for the Masses. In my previous post, I examined the objection that election is a source for pride. I argued that a person [...]
Morality of Abortion
I am cheating… I hope this allowed.
I would like to have some discussion on this post: Morality of Abortion over at my blog.
Paul and Early Christians
A good friend of mine gave me a most interesting gift card to Barnes and Noble. I was able to turn it into the following books:
What Paul Really Said About Women I am curious about this one. A straight forward reading of some of Paul’s letters seem to slap women in the [...]
History in the Eyes of the Ancients
In preparation for some posts I am working on, I want to talk about history in Antiquity. It is very easy to import modern ideas and standards of history writing onto Ancient texts. However, to do so, will skew one’s reading of the text in a way that the author did not intend. The [...]