A Blue Parakeet in High Heels

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm By Scot McKnight

By Leslie Keeney: The other benefit of wearing heels is less easily described, but more powerful—something akin to both courage and confidence, but not quite either. Something that comes from deciding not to pretend I’m not female when walking through the predominantly male world of evangelical academics. Anyone old enough to have been sentient in the 1980s remembers that a lot of women dressed, as Harrison Ford’s character in “Working Girl” said, “like a woman thinks a man would dress if... Read more

The Bible’s Most Difficult Text to Preach?

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm By Scot McKnight

I, SMcK, vote for the Lord’s Prayer — it is so familiar, so dear, and so often said that it is impossible to bring fresh light. Here is a post by John Frye: Scot McKnight notes that the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:7-15) is an intrusion into the almost “obsessive organization” of Matthew 6:1-18. Even more, verses 14-15 are an intrusion into the intrusion as Jesus offers commentary on the forgiveness petition (6:12). We are reviewing Scot’s SGBC: The Sermon on... Read more

Rowan Williams on the Christian Life

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm By Scot McKnight

Here’s a question at the front of any genuine understanding of the Christian life, but I suspect some will ask how an answer to this question can help us understand the Christian life. The question? This: What does (your) baptism mean for your life? One of the ironies of church life is that those who are most known for baptism (I’m speaking of Baptists) seem to talk about it the least. That is, baptism is something that happened in the... Read more

Fr. Robert Barron on Reza Aslan’s Jesus

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm By Scot McKnight

Word on Fire by Robert Barron: The Jesus that Aslan wants to present is the “zealot,” which is to say, the Jewish insurrectionist intent upon challenging the Temple establishment in Jerusalem and, above all, the Roman military power that dominated the land of Israel. His principle justification for this reading is that religiously motivated revolutionaries were indeed thick on the ground in the Palestine of Jesus’ time; that Jesus claimed to be ushering in a new Kingdom of God; and... Read more

The Problem with Progressive Churches

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm By Scot McKnight

Robert Rynder: He misses a factual study by Greeley and Hout: babies. Progressive, mainline church members don’t have as many babies as “evangelical” and “Pentecostal” church members. But he’s got some good points. Raise your hand if you’ve heard these before: “Progressive churches will never grow because they’re too liberal.” “Conservative churches grow because they embody traditional values and orthodoxy.” “If you take a position on a divisive issue, people may leave, but twice as many new people will show up... Read more

Pre-Adamite Populations? (RJS)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm By RJS

One of the questions raised by the evolutionary view of human origins is where, exactly to place Adam and the origin of the human race created in the image of God. Were there pre-Adamic humans? Are or were some “humans” (however we define human evolutionarily) not created in the image of God? However, this isn’t only a problem for evolutionary biology. It cropped up before evolution came into the picture, although it is clear that evolution muddies the waters even... Read more

Can Hell be Restorative?

Last updated on: August 1, 2017 at 5:54 pm By Scot McKnight

Christopher Marshall, a professor at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, thinks so. While I’m not entirely sure he resolves the problems he generates, and he generates them as well as anyone I’ve read, his approach to the problem of hell (Rethinking Hell) is somewhere along the line of conditionalism or annihilationism or final radical diminishment. Perhaps he is closest to C.S. Lewis though I don’t think he would say that. His concern is the moral problem of retributivist judgment... Read more

Grudem on Grudem’s Studies

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm By Scot McKnight

Wayne Grudem has recently been interviewed by Books at a Glance, and here is a brief clip — at the link you can see the whole interview: I’m not so sure that “complementarian” can be defined as “equal in value but different in their God-given roles.” It’s not difference that is the issue; the issue is the kind of difference. Books At a Glance: Dr. Grudem, perhaps you could tell us something of your own interest in this subject. How did it... Read more

Jesus was a Jew (and I am not) by Josh Graves

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm By Scot McKnight

Jesus taught like a Jew. Dressed like a Jew. Thought like a Jew. Ate like a Jew. Sabbathed like a Jew. Spoke like a Jew. Jesus taught, dressed, thought, ate, talked, and got his sabbath on like a Jew because–are you ready for it?–Jesus was a Jew. He came from Jewish parents. He was raised in a tiny Jewish town. Probably grew up learning Torah, the primary sacred text for Jewish children. Now that we all agree, I have a story to... Read more

The Inadequacy of the Inerrancy Model (Pete Enns)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm By Scot McKnight

I was at Tyndale House in the early 80s when a well-known evangelical theologian came by to speak about the importance of inerrancy. It was a good and encouraging address, but after the paper a veteran NT scholar leaned over to me and said something like this: “It is easy for systematicians to claim inerrancy because they don’t have to live with critical scholarship on the Bible.” The veteran scholar here was not an Old Testament scholar but a NT... Read more