Scot McKnight’s book, The King Jesus Gospel, has a really cool promo clip. See it below! Read more

I’m reading an old little book by the late Stephen Neil called What is Man? and it has this interesting little quote: When Jesus died, something happened that had never happened before in the whole history of the world. A man had lived the whole of his life in perfect and complete obedience to God. Death really is an end. It marks the end of the chapter. Nothing can now change what has gone before. Through temptation and suffering Jesus... Read more

“Elegance” would not be the first word that would come to anyone’s mind that read my writing style. If I were to evaluate my own perception of my writing, I would say I’m as elegant as Fred Flintstone. Elegance is the subject of Lesson 9 in Williams and Colomb’s useful book on writing style Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (10th Edition). “Elegance”, however, is not what you might think. Here’s how Williams and Colomb’s define it: I incline toward... Read more

Returning to our case for “dual baptism”, I conclude with the following. When Paul said that there was “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5), which baptism he had in mind? Did he mean believer’s baptism or infant baptism? Truth be told, I think he simply meant Christian baptism. The baptism that is performed in obedience to Christ’s command, in the name of the triune God, and which initiates the recipient into the church of Jesus Christ. Let me... Read more

The Chicago Sun-Times’ front page story this morning is troubling to those of us who will be welcoming a new class of college freshman into our lecture halls in the next couple of weeks. Three-quarters of them are not ready for university studies! More than three-quarters of Illinois high school graduates aren’t completely ready for college, based on their ACT scores, state results of the college-admission test released Wednesday show. Only 23 percent of Illinois’ 2011 high school graduating class... Read more

Is there another option in the credobaptism (believer’s baptism) vs. paedobaptism (infant baptism) debate? Well, an alternative position is for churches to permit both views of baptism, credo and paedo, to be practiced side by side.[1] This policy of dual baptism is held by the Nazarene Church, American Evangelical Covenant Church, French Reformed Church, and Presbyterian Church (USA). As far as I know, most paedobaptist churches do not force congregants to baptize their children, but only refuse to re-baptize adults,... Read more

Over at the Center for Public Christianity, John Dickson interviews Prof. Lynn Cohick about women in the Roman world and in the earliest churches. Do check it out (esp. the second video)! Read more

I have been thinking much about “liberal” Christianity in recent weeks. The term “liberal” is an odd description. In some contexts “liberal” can be positive in the sense of being generous or libertarian in something. We like the idea of “liberal” giving or having a “liberal” society where things are free and fair. In Australia our most conservative political party is called the Australian Liberal Party and they are not “liberal” in the sense of hard-left values (though perhaps leftist... Read more