Friday is for Friends: Matt Edwards

Last updated on: March 27, 2009 at 6:05 am By Scot McKnight

This week’s Friday is for Friends comes from Matt Edwards, at Believers Fellowship in Gig Harbor. I have a question regarding loyalty and the third way. One of the prominent attributes of YHWH in the Old Testament is His hesed, translated “steadfast love,” “faithfulness,” or “lovingkindness” by various English Bibles. Essentially, the word means something along the lines of “faithfulness” or “loyalty,” and it is often extolled as a virtue both of God and of godly people. For instance, Deuteronomy... Read more

Pastors as Poets

Last updated on: March 27, 2009 at 12:03 am By Scot McKnight

“What the congregation needs is not a strategist to help them form another plan for achieving a desired image of life, but a poet who looks beneath even the desperation to recover the mystery of what it means to be made in God’s image.” So pastor-professor and poet M. Craig Barnes, in his new book: The Pastor As Minor Poet: Texts and Subtexts in the Ministerial Life . Wisdom needs to be the name of the pastoral game. Wisdom finds... Read more

Pastor’s Bookshelf: Mark

Last updated on: March 26, 2009 at 3:02 pm By Scot McKnight

We are doing a series on NT commentaries, and I have to confess that I forgot about it … so here is the Gospel of Mark. Our goals is to provide for pastors and students and serious Bible students a listing of the top commentaries. There is an abundance, and I’m happy to hear about the ones you really like. Probably the most intense, complete, and scholarly commentary on Mark is by Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia: a... Read more

American Idol

Last updated on: March 26, 2009 at 12:48 pm By Scot McKnight

Who’s going to be voted off American Idol tonight? Who do you think will win? Read more

Youth Ministry and Community: Chris Folmsbee

Last updated on: March 26, 2009 at 6:03 am By Scot McKnight

This is the 3d post by Chris Folmsbee, a leader in youth ministry theology. It wasn’t until I was nearly half a dozen years into vocational youth ministry that I began to discover that I couldn’t will a sense of community. As hard as I worked to create an environment of invitation, generosity, hope, love, hospitality, honesty, shared learning, etc., I discovered that community isn’t developed out of a specific strategy or a series of methods regardless of how diligent... Read more

Our Collective Faith and Heresies 4

Last updated on: March 26, 2009 at 12:02 am By Scot McKnight

The first two heresies were about who Christ is/was. The next two are about how the divine and the human nature are related. The first concerns Nestorius and gave rise to the Councel of Ephesus at which council Mary was called Theotokos, the God-bearer. Nestorius thus is the next study in B. Quash and M. Ward, Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe , and it is a splendid chap. Anna Williams (A.N. Williams) is... Read more

One More Spiritual Question

Last updated on: March 25, 2009 at 4:13 pm By Scot McKnight

What if you think you are going in the right direction but don’t like it or feel empty about it? Read more

A Brother’s Wisdom 23

Last updated on: March 25, 2009 at 1:00 pm By Scot McKnight

Community’s advance and progress and are formed when those communities put away things that destroy and work against community. If quick-to-listen and slow-to-speak are two major characteristics of community, then James 1:21 describes the things that need eradication: 19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and... Read more

Romance and Marriage Vows

Last updated on: March 25, 2009 at 6:03 am By Scot McKnight

David Blankenhorn, in a column in 1997 (and anthologized in a book my class is reading — Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying (The Ethics of Everyday Life) ), discusses the potential symbolic value of marriage vows. He speaks of two changes in marriage vows today: 1. Modern vows routinely omit or downplay a pledge of permanence in marriage.2. Modern vows are composed by the couple. What do you think of these two changes? Do you... Read more

Lenten Confession

Last updated on: March 25, 2009 at 12:14 am By Scot McKnight

Most holy and merciful Father: We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. The Celebrant continues We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as... Read more