I’ve mentioned in a number of posts over the 18 months or so that I’ve begun a habit of simply listening to Scripture regularly – usually on my commute – in large chunks straight through. Despite having been raised in the church, for the most part in local churches that read Scripture publicly and emphasized individual reading and study of scripture, this experience has been enlightening on so many levels. There were no surprises – I knew all of the... Read more
Any good solution to the big problems of life must deal at some point with “why evil?” If the apostle Paul proposed big solutions to life then he had to deal with evil, so N.T. Wright, in Paul and the Faithfulness of God, sketches the various solutions to the problem of evil and then offers how Paul’s “revised monotheism” (around Jesus, around the Spirit [he spells it “spirit”]) deals with evil. Of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Jewish monotheists, Paul fits with... Read more
Roger Olson, on defining who is an Arminian: I consider anyone a fellow Arminian who is an orthodox Protestant Christian (justification by grace alone through faith alone) who believes in human inability to initiate a saving relationship with God apart from prevenient grace (whatever they might call that), corporate election, prevenient grace (again, whatever they might call it), universal atonement, and resistible grace and does not believe God “designed, ordained, or rendered certain” the fall of humanity and all of... Read more
It is the silence of the megachurches and pastors that bothers me. I have just finished writing a commentary on the most famous sermon in history, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, a sermon that calls followers of Jesus to a kind of life that issues into “good works,” and I must speak out. I refer to the recent post by CNN’s John Blake on the CNN Belief Blog about the coverage gap in 25 states where, it is estimated by... Read more
In a day when some are erroneously suggesting that the Sermon on the Mount is law, law, and some more law (one scholar said it was Moses mossisimus) there are others of us who think the Sermon on the Mount is gospel. The Sermon on the Mount, I contend, is the gospel. On the basis of The King Jesus Gospel, in which I outline both the soterian approach and the Jesus/apostolic approach to gospel, I argue the gospel is the declaration... Read more
Source: WASHINGTON (RNS) The highest-ranking Muslim in the British government on Friday (Nov. 15) called on Western governments to do more to protect besieged Christian minorities across the world, particularly in the Holy Land where they are now seen as “outsiders.” Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the government’s minister for faith and the first Muslim member of a British cabinet, said religious freedom is a proxy for human rights and must not be an “add-on” to foreign policy. “A mass exodus is... Read more
Lovereading: Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually. Read more
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Read more
Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually. Read more
David Moore, who blogs at www.twocities.org, conducted the following interview. R. Alan Streett is Senior Professor of Biblical Exegesis at Criswell College. I recall listening to his stimulating radio program during the early 1980s. For those of us who are older (I am 55), and still ponder doing doctoral work, Alan is a great example of perseverance. He did his first PhD in his thirties, but recently completed a second PhD in New Testament while in his sixties. Streett blogs... Read more
Jesus Creed
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In