Michael Bird, an excellent young professor, gives us something we really need: a readable, up-to-date, avoid-the-fads approach to the apostle Paul. The book is for students, college and seminary and adult classes. Cleverly, Mike Bird calls his book A Bird’s Eye View of Paul. The wit of the title is matched by the wit in the book. It’s fun, it’s readable, and I hope you buy it. And I hope if you teach Paul that you will use this book.... Read more
Yesterday I suggested the wrath of Romans 12:19 (“but leave room for the wrath of God … vengeance…”) was historical wrath, and here’s why — from Romans 13: |inline Read more
John Stackhouse has a goal: to construct a Christian realism when it comes to how we should relate to and participate in culture. He sketches this view in his excellent book, Making the Best of It. After sketching the famous five categories of H. Richard Niebuhr (see our earliest post in this series), Stackhouse goes through three figures who have helped him think through his ideas: CS Lewis, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Bonhoeffer. Today’s post concerns Reinhold Niebuhr. |inline Read more
If you live in Rochester, NY, I’ve got some good news for you. Our niece is dating Jonathan Williams, and he is running a camp — a sports camp — and I can vouch for this young man. Not only is he a good athlete (real good – as in invited to an NFL camp after he graduated from college), he’s a quality person doing quality things with his life. The camp is called Change the Game D-YNASTY Camp. Read more
If you live in Rochester, NY, I’ve got some good news for you. Our niece is dating Jonathan Williams, and he is running a camp — a sports camp — and I can vouch for this young man. Not only is he a good athlete (real good – as in invited to an NFL camp after he graduated from college), he’s a quality person doing quality things with his life. The camp is called Change the Game D-YNASTY Camp. Read more
Paul connects God to wrath, and he does so quite demonstrably in Romans 12:19: |inline Read more
This post is by RJS Here is the big question facing us today… What is the problem? We do not live in the Garden of Eden (Utopia, Shangri La, Paradise — you name it). Most of us would agree that it is self evident that something is fundamentally wrong with the world we currently occupy. The 20th century, with genocide, war, greed, injustice, and selfishness, has disabused the optimistic view of the inherent goodness of humanity and the evolution of... Read more
I want to make an offer to some of you to read a book and engage in a conversation here about that book. I’d like the conversation to take place near July 1; so about a month from now. The offer is for these kinds of people: people who have struggled with their faith, people who are spiritual directors who know the struggles of others, people who are pastors who attend to the struggles, and emerging Christians who are struggling.... Read more
Today we come to a text that, on its own, probably says all that needs to be said. Romans 9:22 in context: |inline Read more
We are working through John Goldingay’s multi-volumed “First Testament” theology, and we are in volume 2 — Israel’s Faith. The first theme in Israel’s faith is God, and this chp — 151 pages long! — is worth the price of both of the books. I want to provide a brief sketch of the major ideas canvassed in this chp, though I’ll focus on pp 96ff because that is where we stopped last month. |inline Read more
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