Journeying through Churches

Last updated on: September 13, 2013 at 7:09 pm By Scot McKnight

Michelle Van Loon‘s “confession” and lessons: For several years, I served as the Communications Director for a ministry that networked Evangelical and a few Mainline congregations for purposes of service/outreach, learning, fellowship, and prayer. Someone once asked me what it was like to interact with people of so many different doctrinal convictions and practices. I told the person I felt as though my life had uniquely prepared me for the job because my husband and I (and our kids, when... Read more

New Freedoms at Moody

Last updated on: September 20, 2013 at 7:02 am By Scot McKnight

Alcohol consumption has a history in the USA — including the prohibition movement — and a history in some churches. Alcohol consumption was connected to holiness and holiness to not consuming alcohol, and they wrap it all up into communities who commit themselves to such a view and out comes social pressure … and this is how social formation and spiritual formation get wrapped into one bundle. Anyway, Moody Bible Institute changed its rules for faculty on alcohol consumption. Notice... Read more

Pastors and People, by John Frye

Last updated on: September 19, 2013 at 8:22 pm By Scot McKnight

By John Frye: Hebrews 13: Pastors and People Hebrews 13 is a good chapter for pastors to visit regularly. Hebrews 13 ends the fascinating book with some personal and pastoral exhortations and a concluding, majestic benediction. The author’s concern is for the enduring, holy stability of the Christian community that is facing hostile and turbulent circumstances. The author has some pertinent directives for the people in relationship to their leaders. We must remember, however, that the author is addressing a... Read more

Greg Boyd and the Bible

Last updated on: September 19, 2013 at 11:13 am By Scot McKnight

Jonathan Merritt’s excellent interview with Greg Boyd is here, and you can read the whole at that link, but here’s a clip: JM: In Benefit of the Doubt, you advise people to believe in the Bible because they believe in Jesus, not the other way around. What do you mean by this, and why do you feel it is important? GB: The number one reason young people today are abandoning the Christian faith and why other people can’t take the Christian faith seriously has... Read more

Strange Driving Laws

Last updated on: September 15, 2013 at 2:30 pm By Scot McKnight

Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually. Read more

Reflections on Reading Genesis 1-3 (RJS)

Last updated on: September 19, 2013 at 5:44 am By RJS

We have posted several times over the last few months on Genesis 1-3 and on Prof. John Walton’s approach to Genesis 1-3. Scot called it a Game-Changer in the Genesis 1-2 debates in a post that attracted a great deal of attention. A few months ago I had the opportunity to listen to Walton present his work and put up a post No Scientific Revelation in the Bible!. This one also attracted a good deal of attention. John Walton is ... Read more

Dallas Willard: Why the Church?

Last updated on: September 15, 2013 at 8:31 pm By Scot McKnight

Dallas Willard framed all theology and all practices as dimensions of spiritual transformation unto Christlikeness. Gary Black, Jr., in The Theology of Dallas Willard: Discovering Protoevangelical Faith sketches three more themes that illustrate our opening claim: theo-ontology, christology, and ecclesiology. God, Jesus and the church. What do you think of making spiritual formation or transformation central to theology? Taking up the term “ontotheology” of Kant and Heidegger, Willard reformed it to theo-ontology to express what is perhaps his most central idea:... Read more

What Explains This?

Last updated on: September 15, 2013 at 7:16 am By Scot McKnight

Adjuncts outperform tenured professors in teaching evaluations. From Dan Berrett: Students learned more when their first instructor in a discipline was not on the tenure track, as compared with those whose introductory professor was tenured, according to a new paper from Northwestern University. The paper, “Are Tenure-Track Professors Better Teachers?,” was released on Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, and it sheds new light on the hotly debated topic of whether the increased use of adjunct instructors is helping or... Read more

In spite of what so many think…

Last updated on: September 15, 2013 at 9:02 pm By Scot McKnight

In spite of what so many think, the NT doesn’t draw up how a church should be run. And in spite of what many think, most especially the high church types, how a church was to be run or organized or structured was not clear for several centuries. This doesn’t throw things up for grabs so much as it leads us to be more cautious in our claims. Where does the “authority” lie in your church? In the pastor, in... Read more

“Any that pisseth against the wall”

Last updated on: September 15, 2013 at 8:33 pm By Scot McKnight

There you have the “unseemly clause” in the Old Testament, at least according to the KJV, a number of times: 1Sam. 25:22 So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall. 1Sam. 25:34 For in very deed, as the LORD God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to... Read more

What food did Elijah eat in the wilderness?