Acts and Mission 11

Last updated on: August 19, 2009 at 12:47 pm By Guest Contributor

What happens when Pentecost happens? That’s our week’s question. What happens is that community happens? That’s our week’s answer. How does community happen? We’ll look at a third characteristic today. Again, the passage: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their... Read more

Obamacare: Political Rhetoric

Last updated on: August 19, 2009 at 5:49 am By Scot McKnight

The recent inflagration in rhetoric, comparing Obama to socialism or Hitler and the like, is a lazy, morally inexcusable way of getting an emotional response and often carried off in the absence of concrete evidence or knowledge of actual policy. But it works, and so both sides have tried it — from Nancy Pelosi to Rush and Sean Hannity. The issue for us is what kind of rhetoric Christians should use in public discourse. Example: Is it accurate and non-distorting... Read more

Genesis One 8

Last updated on: August 19, 2009 at 12:12 am By Guest Contributor

We are in a conversation and discussion about John Walton’s (professor at Wheaton) new book, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate. Proposition 8 of Walton’s book, and one that can reorient everything one sees in Genesis 1: The cosmos is a temple. The ancient near east creation narratives drew close connections between cosmos and temple. And temples were often considered symbols of the cosmos. Josephus, a 1st century AD Jewish historian, stated that everyone... Read more

Obamacare: Big Options

Last updated on: August 18, 2009 at 3:09 pm By Guest Contributor

This from this morning’s NY Times by Paul Krugman. Are these the big options for Obamacare? Let’s talk about health care around the advanced world. Every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees essential care to all its citizens. There are, however, wide variations in the specifics, with three main approaches taken. In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.... Read more

A Blue Parakeet Study Guide (Free)

Last updated on: August 18, 2009 at 3:08 pm By Guest Contributor

This study guide, as noted at the bottom of the study, is from Barb Murphy, and I’m grateful for her efforts. Maybe this can be of use to you in using The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible in your study group. Thanks Barb. (By the way, I get the kindest letters from folks who have read BP and I’m grateful for them.) Chap 1: The book and I 1. Why did Scot tell us his personal story... Read more

Acts and Mission 10

Last updated on: August 18, 2009 at 12:32 pm By Guest Contributor

What happens when Pentecost happens? That’s our week’s question. What happens is that community happens? That’s our week’s answer. How does community happen? We’ll begin to look at that today. Again, the passage: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their... Read more

Missional Campus Ministry 2 (RJS)

Last updated on: November 21, 2012 at 10:04 pm By RJS

We opened this series with a look as Campus ministry as mission. This is a theme that is repeated and elaborated by Benson Hines in his blog and book. Hines spent a year touring College and University campuses and talking with campus ministers and others. In 2007-2008 he spent 370 days and visited 181 campuses in 44 states, Canada and the District of Columbia. He has self-published an e-book (free on his site) Reaching the Campus Tribes describing his observations... Read more

Atheist Delusions 5

Last updated on: August 18, 2009 at 12:14 am By Guest Contributor

David Bentley Hart, a historian of ideas, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies , examines “faith and reason” to provide historical context for what has happened with New Atheists. Did history move from the Age of Faith to the Age of Reason? Was this from superstition to enlightenment? Do the new atheists frame the story this way? Is it appropriate to accuse Christians and believers in religion of all sorts of lacking culture and intelligence and rooting... Read more

Saturday Mail: Would you miss it?

Last updated on: August 17, 2009 at 3:39 pm By Guest Contributor

Did you see this piece on CNN.com? There’s a movement to end Saturday mail. But, would you miss it? On this sultry weekend in the middle of August, take a look at what’s on your kitchen counter. Or maybe you’ve left it on top of the wooden table in your front hallway. Or tossed it onto the chair next to the couch in your living room. Chances are it may still be there: The Saturday mail — the bills, magazines,... Read more

Acts and Mission 9

Last updated on: August 17, 2009 at 12:16 pm By Guest Contributor

What happens when Pentecost happens? Let us take Pentecost as a paradigm of what happens when the Spirit comes down, when God’s Spirit sways God’s People to be and do as they are supposed to, and I can’t see that assumption is anything but reasonable. What happens? Acts 2:42-27 tells us. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous... Read more