Scot McKnight’s fifth chapter of his brand new book The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited asks the question “How did Salvation take over the Gospel?” That certainly is a strange question on the face of it since most of us would have thought prior to reading this little book that the gospel was salvation. But if you’ve been following these posts, you know that Scot is asserting that the apostolic, New Testament gospel is not the same... Read more

Michael R. Licona The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2010. Available at Amazon.com. I did not think anyone could or would write a book on the resurrection bigger and better than N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God. But Michael Licona comes close on both fronts. It includes a magisterial treatment on historiography taking into account scientific, philosophical, and legal matters. There is an exhaustive analysis of the historical sources to the... Read more

I just got news that Bruce McCormack of Princeton Theological Seminary is slated to give this year’s Kantzer Lectures in Revealed Theology on “The God who Graciously Elects: Seven Lectures on the Doctrine of Election.” It is slated from Sept 27 – Oct 4. Even better, the lectures will be live streamed! See the Henry Center Website for details. I like Bruce McCormack, except for the fact that I feel like a hobit standing next to him! Read more

Benjamin Myer’s (a different “Ben” to Faith and Theology fame) has a book of poems called Elegy for Trains and it includes this poem called “On Taking Communion with My Students”. After our Friday Eucharist in class, I thought his poem was a good follow up: Let greasy spikes be caught in halos thrown from chapel windows and the lazy shuffle of saints trace the body of Christ down the chapel alley. Let this one, paper late, eyes avoiding mine like... Read more

I know what I want for Christmas this year.  Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI) [Blu-ray] comes out this week. Read more

In the latest issue of Bible Study Magazine there are some articles on Romans by Preston Sprinkle, Nijay Gupta, John Barry, and even Michael Bird! Here’s an excerpt from my article on “Paul the Pastoral Mediator”: The challenges that faced the church in Rome would be staggering for any leader to deal with—deep ethnic and legal battles that were threatening to split the community. Paul addressed these issues in a letter—to a church he had never visited. Paul had been through... Read more

There are lots of reflections on September 11th being shared in homes, coffee shops, water coolers and blogs today. I’m sure the question has been asked countless times: “Where were you on 9.11?” While I don’t think I had an especially significant experience on that day, it was certainly unusual. So I’d like to share it on this 10th anniversary. My story reminds us that even in such catastrophes, there are also amusing experiences. (more…) Read more

I’ve been posting Scot McKnight’s new book The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. Now Ben Witherington over at his blog Bible and Culture has posted part one of a dialogue with Scot on the book. Read more

In The King Jesus Gospel, Scot articulates why he thinks its dangerous to confuse the “gospel with” the “Plan of Salvation”. Here are his two reasons. When the plan of salvation gets separated from the story: 1. The plan almost always becomes abstract, propositional, de-storified and, therefore, unbiblical. 2. The story of what God is doing in and through Israel and Jesus the Messiah gets turned into a story about me and my own personal salvation. The plan has a... Read more