A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post announcing that I had joined the ranks of the Mutuality position (Egalitarian) on the question of Women and Ministry. What that means is that I fully affirm a woman’s ministry in the church at every level. One of the reasons I gave for my position was my developing hermeneutic. There are a number of things that could be said about this, but I want to just list a couple of the... Read more

Over at the Center for Public Christianity is a good interview with Michael Goheen about the importance of the over-arching biblical story and how it shapes us. Read more

It seems Christmas may have come early because my Evangelical Theology is now only $7.99 on Kindle! See the deal here. Also, EvTh is now # 1 in best sellers in Christian Systematic Theology at the kindle store. Huzzah! Read more

Over at The Good Book Blog, Clinton Arnold (Talbot) reflects on the ETS discussion on inerrancy. In the post, he majors on two apparent themes from Bob Yarbough’s presentation: In the paper, he effectively dismantled two of the oft-heard objections to the doctrine of inerrancy: (1) that it is a recent development associated with the Fundamentalist movement, and (2) that it is a North American development and out of touch with the convictions of the rest of the world. I... Read more

BAR is out with its 2014 Dig issue. I’ll be digging at Bethsaida this summer. Read more

Fox News host Megyn Kelly prompted an out roar by claiming that Jesus, just like Santa Clause, was white. You can watch the video of her here and Jon Stewart’s hilarious send up here. Kelly now admits that Jesus might not be white. Which is a true statement, as long as you change “might not” to “definitely wasn’t.” I think it does show an interesting phenomenon whereby folks have a tendency to paint Jesus in their own image, even racially. Any way, back... Read more

My dear congregation! I am sure that you have noticed at the end of these familiar stories [Matthew 2:13-23]–the flight of Egypt, the massacre of the innocents in Bethlehem, and the return of the Holy Family to Nazareth–each time there is a phrase from the Old Testament, and these words are introduced by, “So was fulfilled what was said.” We have often passed over these words and through of them simply as a repeated formula. In this way we have... Read more

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.  The lines of this prayer are powerful and worth meditating on individually: “Stir up your power, O Lord” “With great might come among us” “We... Read more

In the book Biblical Inerrancy: Five Views, I tried to give a global perspective on the subject by pointing out that outside the USA that the main words used in various statements of faith about the Bible are “authoritative” and “infallible.” I obviously recognize that this is admittedly biased towards English. And although English is the lingua franca of everything from economics to academics, I thought it would useful to begin cataloging words for inerrancy/infallibility as used in churches in non-English... Read more

In the book Biblical Inerrancy: Five Views, one of the contributors is Kevin Vanhoozer, who presents the kind of hermeneutically sophisticated and theologically nuanced position on inerrancy that American evangelicals desperately need to listen to. I found points of agreement and disagreement with all contributors in the book, however, I felt the closest kinship with Kevin Vahoozer. My only hang up is that his “Augustinian Inerrancy” needs to face up to some serious “Origenesque exegesis” in order to be a bit... Read more