Jesus Creed
Is this the API/Twitter revolution? Read more
Is this the API/Twitter revolution? Read more
Preachers and teachers (and writers and bloggers) need this reminder from James 4:12: There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you–who are you to judge your neighbor? Several things come to mind: First, teachers use words; words of judgment and discernment; sometimes the teacher’s word wounds; sometimes it heals. And sometimes the teacher goes over the line and usurps the place of God. (more…) Read more
This series is by my colleague in theology, Dr. Mary Veeneman, and she’s guiding us through a brand new book by Brad Harper and Paul Metzger. The book is called: Exploring Ecclesiology: An Evangelical and Ecumenical Introduction . The question we need to ask, especially of evangelicals, is this: Does the church matter? And if so, how does it matter? Now over to Mary… While taking my doctoral exams in graduate school, I had to answer a method question which... Read more
Another debate in the new vs. old perspective on Paul debate is how to understand Romans 4 and Abraham. Is he an example of faith? Or, as Tom Wright, in Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision , puts it: “Pull out Abraham, and you won’t just pull out a single loose thread from the sweater. You will unravel the whole thing.” For Wright, Abraham is not an example of faith so much as the substantive person in the original covenant itself.... Read more
The Hartford Institute for Religion Research has a new study, available as a PDF, about megachurches. Here is the opening suggestive conclusions, and I’m wondering what you see here (or in the article itself)(HT: AR): A FEW OF THE MOST PROMINENT FINDINGS: Young and single adults are more likely to be in megachurches than in smaller churches. Nearly two-thirds of attenders have been at these churches 5 years or less. Many attenders come from other churches, but nearly a quarter... Read more
James says something in James 4:11 that can be confusing: Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. It does not follow that judging another person automatically judges the Torah, but if we read this verse in light of the next one, something becomes immediately clear. Here is James 4:12:... Read more
Nay, fly to Altars; there they’ll talk you dead; For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread. The Fool referred to by Alexander Pope was the literary critic of his day. Fear not – I intend no literary criticism. Yet the famous quote reflects something of the trepidation I feel as I rush in to tackle a somewhat controversial issue – evolution, the fossil record, and transitional forms (missing links) – and the way we as Christians approach the... Read more
One of our constant readers and commenters is “PW”, who is helping us think about the issues surrounding the spouse of a minister — not always a female, we add. Do you tell your spouse everything? What do you keep back? What rules do you use? Now on to PW: This has happened more than once in my life as a ministry spouse: I have had people stop me in the hallway of the church and start to talk to... Read more
Does counting missionaries help? In Mark Noll’s new book, The New Shape of World Christianity: How American Experience Reflects Global Faith, the implication is that counting tells us some important things: the prominence of Protestant missionaries and the especially high percentage of evangelical missionaries today. He has detailed tables of numbers. For example, in 1999, 38,044 of 41,957 Protestant missionaries are evangelicals. He’s not finding winners and losers here, but calculating the impact of missionaries on world culture and world... Read more
Here is a link to images of protest in Iran. Read more
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