Matt Chandler has a great sermon series on the Apostles’ Creed with some good resources including wallpapers and music suggestions. I also love how he describes the importance of the creeds to The Village Church in the first sermon: Here’s something to think about. When the early church recited this, it was simultaneously their greatest act of rebellion and their greatest act of allegiance. When the church gathered and they stood not in an air conditioned room, protected by rule... Read more

Interesting piece in HuffPo about the possibility of female deacons in the Catholic church. Jesus’ Apostles established the order of deacons mainly to carry out the charitable mission of the church. In the Catholic tradition, the role was eventually subsumed into the priesthood, until the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s revived it as an ordained order open to “mature married men” over 35. (Deacons can also wear a clerical collar, which sometimes leads them to be taken for priests.)... Read more

Over at TGC-A, Hefin Jones has a nice review of my The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus. Who should read this book? Anyone who has a shred of interest in historical Jesus research. If you are anything like me and haven’t read enough serious literature on the Gospels since leaving Bible college it’s a superb re-introduction. It’s not a work of apologetics per se, and I would think that something like Blomberg’s Historical Reliability... Read more

Being the good reformed theologian I am, I try to break down all theologies into five points and convert them into the acronym of TULIP. Francis Watson did a good job many years ago providing the TULIP of the New Perspective on Paul (see here). Below I provide the TULIP of the “Apocalyptic Paul” Total Rejection of Salvation-History The gospel is punctiliar not linear, continuity is minimal, it was Paul’s opponents who were arguing for continuity with Israel’s sacred history. Unveiling... Read more

Over at B&I, Judith Lieu gives a summary of recent research on Marcion and what it means for NT studies and Christian origins: Marcion and the Idea of Heresy. Well worth a read. Her new book is Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century.   Read more

Stephen Altrogge of The Blazing Center has a whimsical piece on Early Warning Signs of Adult Onset Calvin. Among the symptoms of AOC are: A strange and inexplicable ability to listen to 300 John Piper sermons in a single day. A burning passion to convert everyone, especially your extremely godly parents WHO TAUGHT YOU THE BIBLE, to Calvinism. Constant cravings for cigars and microbrews, even though they make you incredibly sick. An unshakeable conviction that Tim Keller is too theologically soft.... Read more

I just learned about the launch of the North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature (NASSCAL). President Tony Burke writes on their site: The North American Society for the Study of Christian Apocryphal Literature is a scholarly organization dedicated to the study of the Christian Apocrypha, a vast assortment of texts that feature tales of Jesus, his family and his immediate followers but, for various reasons, are not included in the New Testament. These texts were composed as... Read more

I have some student writing an essay for me on theosis, so they will naturally appreciate Carl Mosser’s short clip explaining the biblical basis and meaning of theosis. Read more

Alex Ramos, a PhD student at University of Pennsylvania, has a set of Byzantine-style icons of Star Wars characters. You have to check it out. See here. HT: Annette Yoshiko Reed   Read more