Kingdom Conspiracy (by Josh Graves)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

Chapters 1-2 Review for Scot McKnight, Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2014). There is, at almost every level of Christian life in America, a tension rising to surface between people’s understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ kingdom. Is the division meres semantics? Is it sociological? Is the difference geographical (urban versus rural)? Or denominational (conservative versus progressive)? Maybe it’s blogological (as in, whose blog/Tumblr you read -McKnight, Piper, Driscoll, Bell?) Is such... Read more

Corporal Punishment 3

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

William Webb, in his newest book, Corporal Punishment in the Bible: A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic for Troubling Texts, examines what might be called the traditional view of spanking among evangelical Christians. He calls it the “two smacks max” or “two spanks max” method. No Christians today follow the face-value meanings of biblical statements about corporal disciplinary punishment but instead, Webb argues, have gone beyond what the Bible says. This chp provides a biblical argument for “going beyond” the Bible when it... Read more

Imagine a World like this, says Jesus

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

Parables sometimes get a bum rap. For too many and for too long Christians have read the parables as illustrations of propositions found more clearly in other texts. So, it is argued, Jesus gives a parable about the pearl of great price — a parable that seemingly tells his followers to give it all up for the value of that pearl. The story, so it is understood, is almost cute and surely it is clever, but if you want the... Read more

The Story of God

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

How to read the Bible? It has become common today that we need to learn to read the Bible in the context of the Bible’s unfolding, dramatic story. What story? The story of God’s ways with humans, the story of God’s way of ruling and humans preferring not to have God rule but to have human kings rule. But this story sets each passage in the Bible — from the flood narrative to Abraham and on to Esther or Ezra... Read more

O God, you declare your almighty power…

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. BCP Read more

Pondering Photos (Patrick Mitchel)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

Patrick Mitchel is a theologian teaching at Irish Bible Institute, a wonderful teacher at a wonderful ministry in the heart of Dublin — we have been there and it remains one of our all-time highlights. Today someone kindly sent us some photos in the post from years back. (How nice to get a letter with a handwritten note as well!) This coincided with my backing up of photos from computer onto a spare hard-disk – they take up a crazy... Read more

Weekly Meanderings, 27 September 2014

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

Kirsten Powers — we broke Iraq — read these sobering words: Colin Powell famously told President George W. Bush before the Iraq invasion, “If you break it, you own it.” Well, it’s safe to say we broke Iraq. That’s the story I heard last week from two people who live there. I met with the Rev. Canon Andrew White — “The Vicar of Baghdad” — who serves as the chaplain to St. George’s Anglican Church in the heart of Baghdad. We were... Read more

Corporal Punishment 2

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

William Webb, in his newest book, Corporal Punishment in the Bible: A Redemptive-Movement Hermeneutic for Troubling Texts, examines what might be called the traditional view of spanking among evangelical Christians. He calls it the “two smacks max” or “two spanks max” method. I want for readers today to see what Webb means by the Redemptive movement hermeneutic, and this chart of his is the one he uses in his books to illustrate what he is getting at. X is the... Read more

Jesus and Judgment Day (by John Frye)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

Judgment Day By the emphases presented by pastors and teachers to the folks in the pews and desks about evangelical Christianity, people are led to believe that the final judgment will be all about right doctrines and the faithful discovery and use of spiritual gifts. Many will be shocked that as they stand before Jesus that not one question will be asked about the Trinity or penal substitutionary atonement or even inerrancy. In the text that Scot McKnight tackles in... Read more

Liberal Theology: The Conservatives Fight Back

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:31 pm By Scot McKnight

Liberal theology emerged in the 19th Century and regularly drew response from the traditionalists, the orthodox or the conservative. Trials just prior to the 20th Century favored the conservatives but in the 2d and 3d decade of the 20th Century the liberals began to win. This story is told in Roger Olson, The Journey of Modern Theology. Conservatives “won” the well-known Scopes Trial but lost the public; J. Gresham Machen was tried by his own Presbyterian denomination for his opposition to... Read more