When I was in seminary, two other seminary classmates (Jim Davis, Steve Beck) and I began to play a game with one another. Here was our game: “Do you know what the initials in a NT scholar’s name stand for?” So, we would come to class with a new set of initials every day. It [...]
Franke’s Character of Theology
Sep 20, 2005 @ 8:32 By 11 Comments
John Franke’s new book, The Character of Theology: An Introduction to Its Nature, Task, and Purpose, promises to be a study of theology that will enable (what I have elsewhere called) a purple theology. In other words, it is postconservative and postliberal. In this post I will look briefly at the first chapter, “Doing Theology [...]
Purple Theology is Wisdom
Sep 19, 2005 @ 13:34 By 14 Comments
The term “theology,” or even worse “systematic theology,” have bad names among Old and New Testament specialists. The primary reason for this is bad manners: these sorts of scholars intend to be specialists in history and exegesis and don’t want theological questions cluttering up their quest for what the text really says. In other words, [...]
Celebrity culture, writing, and the Church
Sep 19, 2005 @ 9:22 By 9 Comments
A recent meandering through the new biographies at Barnes & Noble confronted me one more time with a bald fact of our time: people want to read biographies with salacious details or biographies of celebrities who have achieved — well, what do celebrities achieve? — or biographies of famous figures. I passed over Brooke Shields [...]
Pastoral Life: Ministers of the gospel 5
Sep 18, 2005 @ 8:02 By 7 Comments
In this final post on how Paul understands the ministry of the gospel in Colossians 1:24-29, we want to look at the goal and source of this ministry. Again, this is not about what pastors do or professional evangelists, but indirectly what each person is summoned to be and do — anyone, in other words, [...]
Blogs of the Week
Sep 17, 2005 @ 21:22 By 3 Comments
I’m trying to get through my entire blogroll each week, but the book on prayer has kept me so busy I’ve not visited them all. Kris reads perhaps even more than I do, but I’ve found the following blogs this week to be especially interesting or provocative or courageous.
How to detect a Genuine Cubs Fan
Sep 17, 2005 @ 13:39 By 11 Comments
Lots of folks claim to be Cubs fans, but some of them are Parousiacs — that is, fans who hang on so they can participate in the final coming of ultimate victory when the Cubs win the World Series. Other fans are genuine. This morning, when Kris and I were walking around the lake at [...]
Pastoral Life: Ministers of the gospel 4
Sep 17, 2005 @ 8:08 By 3 Comments
In our last post, we looked briefly at how ministering the gospel is to take place. This post continues that. How are we to minister the gospel?
What do you consider more athletic?
Sep 16, 2005 @ 22:29 By 35 Comments
A 350 pound fat man wrestling with another 350 pound fat man so that the latter can manhandle a 215 pound quarterback standing still, or a sleek 200 pound man on the edge of life trying to hit a 95 mph fastball into the creases of a green velvet outfield and, when he does succeed, [...]
More reasons why the National League is better
Sep 16, 2005 @ 22:20 By 7 Comments
The answers are this simple: 1. No Yankees. 2. No George Steinbrenner. 3. The Cubs. 4. Wrigley Field. 5. Ryne Sandberg.
Back from Civitas Lectures
Sep 16, 2005 @ 22:09 By 18 Comments
We’re back from Grand Rapids and the Civitas Lectures at Cornerstone University on After Evangelicalism. I heard some nice panel sessions, had lunch with Kris and Jim Kinney of Baker (where I heard the story of how they are bringing out a USA edition of The Life of the Christ in which I had a [...]
South Haven
Sep 16, 2005 @ 8:04 By
Kris and I spent the night in South Haven, are heading for breakfast, and then up to Grand Rapids for the conference on Post Evangelicalism. I wish we could have heard Bob Webber last night, but we avoided the traffic in Chicago and left too late. I’m hoping we can get a discussion on how [...]
Why Baseball is Superior to Football
Sep 15, 2005 @ 15:28 By 13 Comments
I don’t know your reasons, but for me the #1 reason baseball is superior is…
The American League does not play baseball
Sep 15, 2005 @ 10:01 By 22 Comments
It is that time of the year when fans are starting to chat about who will get to the World Series. Who cares?, I ask. Why do you say so?, they ask back. Because the World Series is not, in fact, baseball.
Pastoral Life: Ministers of the gospel 3
Sep 15, 2005 @ 7:05 By 8 Comments
The ending of Paul’s first chapter in the letter to the Colossians is rich for the one who wants to know how to minister the gospel. It should be made clear, perhaps, that I’m not here talking simply of “ordained pastors” who are ordained to an “office” in the Church. In fact, Paul’s words apply [...]
My Favorite Fountain pen
Sep 15, 2005 @ 7:05 By 15 Comments
I ranted about Bic pens and that 57 of those little basters (a favorite word in Maine) have sold every second since the 1950s. Then I had to offer something in its place — ranting without a constructive solution is just pent-up nonsense. So, I suggested thinking about a fountain pen. Now I’ve been asked [...]
A New Heresy and Sect Discovered
Sep 14, 2005 @ 20:28 By 7 Comments
Recently, but only very recently, a new sect and heresy have been discovered. This group, evidently confined nearly entirely to Chicago but numbering in the hundreds of thousands, has managed to keep itself under wraps for all authorities. Who are they?
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