Latino vs. Stoic

Last updated on: October 4, 2013 at 7:08 pm By Scot McKnight

Major League Baseball, so Jorge Arangue says, is divided between the celebratory approach of Latinos and the stoicism of traditional Americans: Forget about the stats vs. scouts argument: The biggest dissonance in the game right now is between the showmanship of Latino players and the stoicism of the old guard. Some believe it is the fight for baseball’s soul. Some believe that allowing such behavior will irreparably damage the game. It’s a silly argument, of course, but it’s happening. A... Read more

Reading Tolstoy Will…

Last updated on: October 4, 2013 at 7:12 pm By Scot McKnight

… increase and develop your social and emotional skills. Comment below. A new study published this week in Science concludes that you may get something unexpected from reading great literary works: more finely-tuned social and emotional skills. Conducted by Emanuele Castano and David Comer Kidd (researchers in the psych department at the New School for Social Research), the study determined that readers of literary fiction (as opposed to popular fiction or non-fiction) find themselves scoring better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence. In some... Read more

Grace, and the God of that Grace

Last updated on: October 6, 2013 at 10:04 am By Scot McKnight

A rock-solid agreement on which Christians of all stripes — and I mean all stripes — should agree is that God is gracious and that the whole of our redemption comes from God’s grace. So, humans don’t save themselves, they don’t become loving or holy by themselves, and they don’t stand up from the grave by themselves. They can no more rise from the dead by themselves than be born again by themselves. So, we can all agree that it is all of... Read more

Black “and” or “but” Beautiful?

Last updated on: October 6, 2013 at 10:07 am By Scot McKnight

The Great Song of the Old Testament, often called the Song of Songs (not to be called the Song of Solomon, though it could be called the Song about Solomon [and others]), requires some sensitive interpretation. For instance… 1. There are three main characters: the Shulammite woman, her lover/husband, and Solomon. 2. The book is a satire about Solomon because the Song is about his attempt to woo the Shulammite into his harem of many women and his failure to accomplish his... Read more

Do You Use a Library? Read This

Last updated on: October 8, 2013 at 11:54 am By Scot McKnight

Very sad what e-book prices are for libraries: This is not one of those rants about missing the texture, touch, colors, whatever of paper contrasted with the sterility of reading on a tablet. No, the real abomination of ebooks is often overlooked: Some are so ingrained in the product itself that they are hiding in plain sight, while others are well concealed beneath layers of commerce and government. The real problem with ebooks is that they’re more “e” than book,... Read more

God Blesses Job … New Children to Replace Those Lost? (RJS)

Last updated on: October 8, 2013 at 8:25 am By RJS

This post wraps up a nearly year long trek through the book of Job. Along the way we have followed two recent commentaries – Job (The NIV Application Commentary) by John Walton and Job (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms) by Tremper Longman III (and enjoyed the illustrations by William Blake). The prose ending to the book introduces a number of questions and conundrums for the reader. Longman and Walton deal with these a little differently –... Read more

From New Perspective to Fresh Perspective to … what’s next?

Last updated on: October 6, 2013 at 5:39 pm By Scot McKnight

In N.T. Wright’s earlier work on Paul he advocated a pioneering orientation we now call the New Perspective, in part because Wright himself used that expression but even more because J.D.G. Dunn called the whole movement that. Then less than a decade ago Wright wrote a little book on Paul that added to the new perspective and he himself called it the “fresh” perspective. What Wright added to the NPP was anti-imperial themes: Paul was not only extending Judaism but... Read more

So How Big is Africa? This Big!

Last updated on: October 4, 2013 at 7:20 pm By Scot McKnight

Wow. Read more

Marriage Pitfalls (by Jim Martin)

Last updated on: October 3, 2013 at 7:16 pm By Scot McKnight

My good friend, Jim Martin, VP at Harding Graduate School, wrote this up the other day: Most of us need at least one of these; some of us more than one. 1. Beware of ignoring your wife’s spiritual development while you focus on feeding yourself and the congregation. A ministry couple can easily drift apart spiritually. 2. Beware of assuming that because you read and talk theology that your work with Jesus is more authentic than that of your spouse.... Read more

Benefit of the Doubt

Last updated on: October 6, 2013 at 4:53 pm By Scot McKnight

Many learn that the best faith is certaintist faith, that doubt is the worst kind of failure, and that when in doubt one should pluck up the courage to believe. Greg Boyd, in what will surely become a standard point of departure for conversations about faith and doubt, Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty, calls the problem “certainty-seeking faith” and contends there are any number of problems with this kind of faith. Before the problems, a brief description... Read more

What did God create Eve from?