Thom Rainer: July 1, 2014 | by Thom Rainer Few people will argue that church attendance in many churches in America is declining. Our own research indicates that the majority of churches in our country are not growing. Most of us have ideas about this development. Many suggest that our nation is shifting away from its Christian roots. Thus, churches are declining as a smaller proportion of our country follows Christ. I will not argue with that premise. Certainly attendance declines... Read more
Timothy Paul Jones has a very useful, informed article on his blog on naming the new Calvinism, and his graph of the elements at work is worth considering. How then should we refer to the recent resurgence of interest in Reformed soteriology? Before providing a tentative answer to this question, it may be worth pointing out that no one within this growing movement appears to be clamoring for a newer or narrower name. What I’ve witnessed among the so-called “young,... Read more
Psalm 119, captured by some as Torah piety, is a “medley of praise, prayer and wisdom” (R. Allen, Psalms 101-150, Word). This Psalm, noted above by it being an acrostic with eight lines beginning with the same Hebrew letter (vv. 1-8 begin with aleph) as it works it way through 176 verses. So, today I begin with the letter Aleph, or A. We will proceed through the Psalm in the order of the Hebrew alphabet. There are eight major terms for God’s... Read more
Way back in the 1930s John W. Wenham, eventual author of one of the most influential Greek grammar texts and of a book called The Goodness of God (also called The Enigma of Evil), was a student of an eccentric English academic named Basil F.C. Atkinson, who it was known believed in conditional immortality (annihilationism). Wenham took the case on as a personal project and over the years became a firm advocate for the position. His evangelical credentials and personal piety... Read more
RNS, by Lauren Markoe: (RNS) Muslim tradition calls for breaking the Ramadan fast in the evening with a date and a sip of water, and increasingly these days, the company of Jews. This Ramadan, as Jews and Muslims exchange rocket fire in Israel and Gaza, those attending these meals say they are all the more significant, as a way of demonstrating that Jews and Muslims have much in common, and can enjoy each others’ food and company. In Los Angeles... Read more
Dan Wilt: The truth is, over 25 years of worship leading, I think they both are. These two people represent two ends of a spectrum emerging over the last 40+ years of contemporary worship culture. One is Worship Accompaniment Culture, and the other is Worship Immersion Culture. Still other subcultures fall in between these two, but they represent the ends of the spectrum when it comes to the music of worship…. The first subculture within our congregations is what I... Read more
By Jason Micheli… I Need to Drive Your Toilet I studied five years of Latin in high school and four years of German. I can still decline the word for ‘farmer:’ acricola, agricolae, agricolam. And I can recall enough German to appreciate Indiana Jones on a deeper level. I studied Greek and Hebrew in seminary, and I still know them well enough to venture into the Old and New Testaments like a treasure hunter armed with a few well-chosen tools.... Read more
O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Read more
Source: (CNN) — Adam Ritchie, a Domino’s Pizza manager in Cheyenne, Wyoming, said he’d never received a call like the one he got Monday night. “I need to feed my whole plane,” the caller told him. “Lucky me, I hear 160 people. It ended up being like 38 pizzas,” Ritchie told CNN. A Frontier Airlines flight from Washington to Denver was diverted to Cheyenne because of bad weather. The plane was stuck on the ground for nearly two hours. The food... Read more
David George Moore conducted the following interview. Dave blogs at www.twocities.org. Dru Johnson is an assistant professor of biblical studies at The Kings College in New York City. The following interview revolves around his book, Biblical Knowing: a Scriptural Epistemology of Error. Moore: I know that Biblical Knowing is a rework of your doctoral work. Would you tell us a bit how you got interested in this study? Johnson: Originally, I was going to do doctoral work in social psychology.... Read more
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