Looking forward to Sharing God’s Love Launch

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By Scot McKnight

We are looking forward to tonight’s book launch. At Carol & Company. In downtown Barrington. 6:30-8pm. Here is an endorsement from Steve Argue: “Parents desiring to raise their children in the Christian faith instinctively want to help their children learn to love God and love others. However, talking about spiritual things can often feel abstract and difficult to translate. This delightful books serves as a great resource for parents who want to show their kids what loving God and others... Read more

Where is the kingdom?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By Scot McKnight

D. Bonhoeffer, Christmas Night sermon, 25 December 1940 (DBW 16.616). It is no longer a worldly throne and kingdom as it once was but a spiritual throne and kingdom. Where are Jesus’ throne and kingdom? They are where he himself is present, reigns, and governs with his word and sacrament, in the church, in the congregation…. We are called into this kingdom. We can find it, within the church, in the community of the faithful, when we receive the word... Read more

The Church and the Theologian

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By Scot McKnight

Monday a prospective student visited with me briefly in my office @nseminary and he expressed his own hopes for churches and for his own calling, which entails teaching theology in a local church — that is, raising the theological level of ordinary Christians. It is a noble hope and vocation, and not one without some challenges. It so happened that the night before I read about this very challenge in Bonhoeffer (DBW 16.493)[I have reformatted it slightly], and it comes... Read more

Bacon’s Bequest (RJS)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By RJS

A number of weeks ago I introduced a new book by David N. Livingstone Dealing With Darwin. In this book Livingstone, Professor of Geography and Intellectual History at Queen’s University, Belfast, explores the importance of location and local context on the way Darwinian evolution was received, embraced, or rejected. His chapter on the reaction to Darwin in Canada, specifically among Presbyterians primarily in Toronto, looks in particular at the role a pragmatic Baconian view of science played. The overall reaction... Read more

Who Owns Bonhoeffer?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By Scot McKnight

I have been with a wide variety of theologians and pastors who love Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In fact, Bonhoeffer seems to be on every one’s side. Is there a “real” Bonhoeffer beyond the ownership? We might wonder where he’d locate himself in our theological spectrum but that’s speculation. Andrew Root, in his new book on Bonhoeffer, called Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker: A Theological Vision for Discipleship and Life Together, sketches what Stephen Haynes called the “Bonhoeffer phenomenon.” That is, he sketched the... Read more

Emotions, Gender and Scholarship (by Lynn Cohick)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By Scot McKnight

This post is by co-editor in the Story of God Bible Commentary, and author of an excellent new commentary on Philippians in that series. Emotions, Gender, and Scholarship This weekend I attended a memorial for a colleague’s daughter who had passed away from cancer in her 20s. She graduated from Wheaton College, and a park bench on campus was dedicated to her memory. Her father told a story about sitting with his daughter on a glorious sunny day in Central... Read more

Judging the Cost (by Jonathan Storment)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By Scot McKnight

This post is by Jonathan Storment. Judging the Cost “You know how much I love you right?” –a brother talking to his addicted sister in the show intervention “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” St. Paul A few weeks ago I introduced a short series talking about what it feels like to be inside of “Christian Love”. Most of the time when someone starts an email or a conversation by saying that, I brace myself... Read more

Spiritual Disciplines: What should we expect?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By Scot McKnight

Ah, those spiritual disciplines. What are they? What do they accomplish? Which ones are most important? What are we to expect from the spiritual disciplines? Barry Jones just might capture the whole picture in these words from his book Dwell: Life with God for the World, and I have reformatted these into “teaching points” (pp. 102-103): Whether we live in a remote monastery, the heart of a large city or anywhere in between, we need a set of practices and patterns for... Read more

The Vid for Kingdom Conspiracy

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By Scot McKnight

Who Are Man and Woman? (RJS)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:27 pm By RJS

The next chapter of Iain Provan’s book Seriously Dangerous Religion looks at the nature of humanity in the Old Testament and particularly at the relationship of male and female comprising humanity. His focus is on Genesis 1-2, but expands to consider the entire OT as well. Genesis 1 and 2 are concerned with proper functions and relationships in God’s good creation, not with a scientific, historical report of the sequence of creation. The different orders of creation present in Genesis... Read more