Every once in awhile, someone will ask me how I prepare for a Sunday message. Over the years, I have used a lot of different approaches; but the one I prefer is to work inductively from the text. I work slowly, and it usually takes me about 25 hours per week to prepare for a… Read More »
We American Christians were as excited to have a Bible to read. http://youtu.be/4LcEDPRfHMY
I love medieval history. I know that makes me weird. It’s ok. Once, my father brought one of his friends up to New Hampshire to visit me. While sitting in a diner, my dad says, “Joe, ask him what he does with his free time.” His friend looked at me. I told him, “I study… Read More »
Yesterday was apparently “National Siblings Day”, and I missed it. To commemorate this rather insignificant day, I have chosen to write about a couple of my favorite siblings. It begins with an empress, the daughter of an English king. Her name was Matilda, and her father Henry Beauclerc (Henry I) was both King of England… Read More »
Once again, Tom Wright brings wisdom and reason to a hot topic. Toward the end, he addresses the Enlightenment arrogance of those who say, “We know more about homosexuality” or “We have evolved from the ignorance of the ancient world”. While Wright does not come down on one side or the other in this video,… Read More »
That the disciple of Jesus taught his resurrection was a revolutionary concept. Here is Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham and one of the foremost New Testament scholars of our day, explaining why the resurrection must be true. “The only way you can explain why christianity began and why it took the very precise shape it was… Read More »
Those who know me also know about my on-again-off-again obsession with writing a book about David and the rise of Israel during the twilight of the Late Bronze Age and the birth of the Early Iron Age. One day, I will find the time and energy to write that book; but in the meantime, where… Read More »
Mclaren’s third chapter marked the first time I had a genuine disagreement with his questions. Mclaren’s attempts to argue that human beings were not able to handle God falls short (he actually uses an analogy where he refers to the ancients as 2nd graders). What if people who live in the second-grade world of polytheism… Read More »
Part 2 of Brian McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity addresses how we should read the Bible. It presented a fairly decent contrast of what I refer to as the clerical and journey views of the Scriptures. Clerical View – the Scriptures need a professional caste of clerks who decipher the texts because the ‘laity’ couldn’t… Read More »
Has it really been ten years since John Eldredge’s book Wild at Heart was published? I guess so. This book was one of the first books to say, “Christian guys don’t need to be pansies” and for that, Eldredge deserves major props. I’ve blogged about this attitude previously, so I won’t rehash my comments here.… Read More »