Creation – Once or Continual? (RJS)

Last updated on: June 9, 2015 at 6:21 am By RJS

The next chapter of Mark Harris’s new book The Nature of Creation looks at the theological significance of the relationship between creation and creator. In particular he considers two aspects of the creative activity – creation from nothing and continuous creation – and what these tell us about the nature of God. Harris also looks at the coherence between modern science and these two aspects of God’s creative activity. Creation from Nothing or creatio ex nihilo is a Christian doctrine... Read more

Formalized Friendships

Last updated on: June 5, 2015 at 10:14 pm By Scot McKnight

One of the marks of “friendship” in our world is that they are the “freest, the least constrained, the least fixed and determined, of all human loves.” This from Wesley Hill, Spiritual Friendship, xiii, and a theme throughout his book. A theme, in fact, that is seriously challenged by a proposal that Wes Hill offers, namely, that friendships ought perhaps to be more formally framed. Once Bonhoeffer opined when Bethge got engaged and then married that he was in some sense... Read more

Voice Mail — A Dinosaur?

Last updated on: June 5, 2015 at 9:02 am By Scot McKnight

In three years at Northern Seminary I’ve not used my office phone once. Nor do I even know how to use it. An occasional voice mail is left that is then sent to my email as a recording. But I’m so over office voice mail. How about you? PS: I hope Northern’s good folks aren’t annoyed when reading this. Jenna McGregor: Corporate cost-cutting measures usually aren’t something to celebrate. Layoffs. Slashing the 401(k) match. Penny-pinching efforts that put the kibosh on Friday... Read more

The New Testament’s Most Undervalued Theologian

Last updated on: June 5, 2015 at 10:10 pm By Scot McKnight

The author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts is, according to Justo Gonzalez, the most “undervalued” author in the NT. We could quibble — we ignore Jude and the author of Hebrews perhaps more — but he’s right. When it comes to pages penned and discussions about, Luke gets ignored. This is why we need books like this one from Gonzalez: The Story Luke Tells: Luke’s Unique Witness to the Gospel (GR: Eerdmans, 2015). Image The... Read more

A New Exodus Out of the American Church (by Jeff Cook)

Last updated on: June 5, 2015 at 10:06 pm By Scot McKnight

Few books have disturbed me as much as Josh Packard’s Church Refugees: Sociologists Reveal Why People are Done with Church but not with Their Faith. Many of us have become familiar with the “Nones” (those who select “none” when asked their religious afflation) and their increase over the past 20 years. Packard describes a different, trending phenomenon: “The Dones”, those who have decided “their spiritual lives are better off lived outside organized religion.” Packard unveils what many of us in Churchworld... Read more

Second Sunday after Pentecost Prayer

Last updated on: June 5, 2015 at 2:12 pm By Scot McKnight

O God, From whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Read more

Saturday Book Review: John Coffey

Last updated on: June 4, 2015 at 6:40 am By Scot McKnight

Enslaved Africans in America are known for their appeal to the Exodus and to the deliverance rhetoric that seminal event in Israel’s history created. Harriet Tubman was not the only African American called Moses and each of them embodied and found deepening resources for liberation in the Exodus narrative. Contrast that reading of the Exodus narrative with slave owner who could appeal to Moses and any number of places to insist upon social order, suppression of rebellion, and the use... Read more

Weekly Meanderings, 6 June 2015

Last updated on: June 6, 2015 at 5:56 am By Scot McKnight

In our year of much travel… Kris and I on our way to Honolulu where I will be teaching “voyagers” the next weeks at Pacific Rim Christian University. Bless her heart! By Peter Holley: A vintage Apple I computer, one of only about 200 first-generation desktop computers built by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne in 1976, can fetch six figures. Assuming, that is, you know you have one in your possession. A Silicon Valley recycling firm that specializes... Read more

A Vice Worth Pondering?

Last updated on: June 4, 2015 at 6:35 am By Scot McKnight

Avarice: I Want It All, by John Frye Contemplating the seven capital vices presented in Glittering Vices: The Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies by Dr. Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung convinces me that no one sins in isolation. An alleged solitary sin damages relationships with God, others, and ourselves. A prime example of this is the sin of avarice. Avarice is greed as DeYoung’s subtitle for the chapter states, “I want it all.”Avarice is not the rich person’s sin. Poverty stricken... Read more

Christians Influencing Society

Last updated on: June 5, 2015 at 1:28 pm By Scot McKnight

Who did what? is one of those questions that social historians love to consider. For instance, who started hospitals? who started education? who focused on civil rights? who advocated for the education of women equal to men? Cases have been made for a variety of social goods as the result of Christians, Christian theology and Christian activism. I have no desire to discuss the above social goods, but there is one that is worthy of a conversation: Who brought the... Read more