Bob Greene, in his inimitable way, cheekily points to the problems in DC by suggesting tax refunds: On the one side of the federal government shutdown are the people whose job it is to run that government: the Congress and the White House. Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals — no one forced any of them to take those jobs. They wanted them. Then ran for them. They got them. On the other side — at least in a rational world, which... Read more
I have been teaching the Sermon on the Mount my entire career, so the arrival of this today — along with Lynn’s Philippians — is a special moment for me. Thankful. Read more
Pastors are fascinated by the life of the Good Shepherd. I have been ruminating about Jesus’ life with the marginalized of 1st century Judaism. I am going to ponder in print some of my thoughts. The more we appreciate Jesus’ life and ministry as a 1st century Jewish man, the more relevant Jesus is to us. The more Jesus becomes a timeless theological construct for all people in all times and all places, the more useless he becomes. Let the... Read more
Though Don Thorsen does not say so, his study of “Humanity: More Freedom than Predestination” contains some ideas that may be the big difference between Calvin and Wesley (Calvin vs Wesley: Bringing Belief in Line with Practice). Maybe we can reduce it to this: Calvin thinks Wesley trivializes the sovereignty of God while Arminians think Calvin trivializes freedom. Let’s explore this topic through Don Thorsen’s chapter. What do you think is the biggest difference between Calvin and Wesley? Both Calvin... Read more
From Forbes: 1. Clergy: The least worldly are reported to be the happiest of all 2. Firefighters: Eighty percent of firefighters are “very satisfied” with their jobs, which involve helping people. 3. Physical therapists: Social interaction and helping people apparently make this job one of the happiest. 4. Authors: For most authors, the pay is ridiculously low or non-existent, but the autonomy of writing down the contents of your own mind apparently leads to happiness. 5. Special education teachers: If you don’t care about money,... Read more
From The Atlantic: American universities award more than 60,000 doctoral degrees every year. However, there are not enough academic jobs for all those graduates. One study asserts that only 41 percent of Ph.D.s will find tenure-track positions. Some studies are slightly more optimistic. In a report for the academic journal PS, Jennifer Seagal Diascro reported that 49 percent of the 816 Ph.D.s who graduated from political science programs between 2009 and 2010 found permanent academic positions. As universities increase the number of adjunct and non-tenure track... Read more
The book of Job is not a theodicy, it does not offer an explanation of why a perfectly good, almighty, and all-knowing God permits evil. The book does not justify God and in Ch. 38-41 God does not offer a defense or explanation for the justice of the world he has created. From Walton’s commentary (Job (The NIV Application Commentary)): So, at long last, what answers does the book provide as it seeks to guide our understanding of God’s policies... Read more
The apostle Paul emerged into faith in Jesus as the Messiah out of the Pharisaic way of life. What was that like? This is one of the highlight questions Tom Wright asks in his new Paul and the Faithfulness of God, and to answer that question he prepares us with a lengthy and winding discussion of the “Story” at work in Judaism and the particular slant that Story was told by the Pharisees. Here is awesome summary, leading to this... Read more
From Ian Millhiser: Seven years after a Michigan ballot initiative prohibited the consideration of race in university admissions, African-American enrollment is way down at the state’s flagship university. Black enrollment declined 30 percent at the University of Michigan’s undergraduate and law schools in Ann Arbor. According to Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr, “[i]n 2006, the last full year in which race could be directly considered in admissions, blacks accounted for 6.4 percent of the freshman class, a number that excludes foreign students.... Read more
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