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Albert Mohler Interviews Jimmy Carter about the Bible

By on March 26, 2012 in Christianity, Theology/Bible

Last week, Dr. Albert Mohler interviewed former President Jimmy Carter about Carter’s new book The Lessons from Life Bible. This really is an interview, not a debate (though Dr. Mohler’s registers disagreement with him on some points during the conversation). You can read the transcript of the interview here, download the audio here, or listen below.

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Here’s President Carter’s answer to Dr. Mohler’s question about the inspiration of scripture: Continue Reading →

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Review: Another Attempt to Discredit Inerrancy Falls Flat

By on March 23, 2012 in Book Reviews, Theology/Bible

The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (and Why Inerrancy Tries To Hide It). By Thom Stark. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2011, xx + 248 pp., $29.00 paper.

It is no secret that some of the most fervid theological liberals tend to be former evangelicals. Evangelical-turned-agnostic Bart Ehrman has vindicated that truism with books like Misquoting Jesus and Jesus Interrupted, both of which seek to discredit biblical inerrancy by popularizing critical studies of scripture. Thom Stark describes himself as a former fundamentalist, and his book The Human Faces of God belongs to the Ehrman-genre, though with at least one significant difference. Despite the Bible’s many deficiencies, Stark wants to retain the Bible’s privileged place as Christian scripture. Even though Stark views the Bible as shot through with error and contradiction, he nevertheless thinks that it is an important book. “This Holy Bible is also my book because I continue to choose it. For everything I loathe about it, there is at least one thing I love about it: it has the power to show me who I am… we see the aspiration, desires, insecurities, and utter obliviousness of humanity” (242). For Stark, the errors and foibles of the Bible are a reflection of the fallen human condition, and that rings true with him. Continue Reading →

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Dan Wallace Enters the Blogosphere

By on March 21, 2012 in Theology/Bible

My old mentor in all things Greek has entered the blogosphere. Actually, Dan Wallace has already been here a while as a contributor to the “Parchment and Pen” blog, but now he is venturing out on his own at DanielBWallace.com. Here’s how Dan describes it:

I decided, after much consternation, to follow the advice of some of my friends. They wanted me to start my own website, so here it is, warts and all. I will be discussing from time to time issue relevant to biblical studies. A special focus will be New Testament textual criticism, Greek grammar, exegesis, and Christology.

You bibliophiles will want to add this one to your feed reader.

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A Jimmy Carter Study Bible

By on March 19, 2012 in Christianity, Theology/Bible

Former President Jimmy Carter has just published a study Bible based on his decades of service as a Sunday School teacher in a Baptist Church. It’s titled NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter, and it “takes Mr. Carter’s years of teaching Sunday school lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, GA, and meshes them with the text of the NIV Bible.” A synopsis on Zondervan’s website describes the book this way:

The legacy of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who has been teaching directly from the Bible for over 65 years and has taken the Bible’s teachings seriously, implementing them into his life’s work. Now he shares his own insights and life lessons with you, opening up the Scripture in a new and fresh way. Continue Reading →

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How To Cite a Tweet MLA and Chicago Style

By on March 8, 2012 in Theology/Bible

I read this week that the Modern Language Association (MLA) has developed a standard format for citing a Tweet in academic writing. That’s all well and good, but what about those of us who don’t use MLA? The college where I work follows The Chicago Manual of Style, and I’m sure many of you use that one as well.

Well, you’re in luck. The Chicago Manual of Style suggests a format for citing Tweets as well on its website. So for all of you theologues, here are both formats.

The Chicago Manual of Style (Endnote)

John Piper, Twitter post, February 26, 2011, 3:09pm, http://twitter.com/johnpiper.

Modern Language Association (MLA) (Works Cited List)

Piper, John (JohnPiper). “Farewell Rob Bell. http://dsr.gd/fZqmd8.” February 26, 2011, 3:09pm. Tweet.

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Spurgeon on the Reproach of Believer’s Baptism

By on March 5, 2012 in Christianity, Theology/Bible

“If I thought it wrong to be a Baptist, I should give it up, and become what I believed to be right… If we could find infant baptism in the word of God, we should adopt it. It would help us out of a great difficulty, for it would take away from us that reproach which is attached to us,—that we are odd, and do not as other people do. But we have looked well through the Bible, and cannot find it, and do not believe that it is there; nor do we believe that others can find infant baptism in the Scriptures, unless they themselves first put it there.”

-Charles Haddon Spurgeon, et al., The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon, vol. 1 (Chicago: F.H. Revell, 1898), 155.

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Jim Hamilton on Believer’s Baptism and Close Communion

By on March 5, 2012 in Theology/Bible

Jim Hamilton has contributed an article to The Gospel Coalition website on believer’s baptism. Jim and I are elders together at Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. So the position he outlines in his essay is also my position. Here’s a brief statement of the view from Jim’s essay:

Baptists believe that those who have not been immersed in water as believers to symbolize their union with Christ by faith have not been baptized. Presbyterians and other paedobaptists think they have been baptized, even if they have not been immersed in water as believers.

John Bunyan agreed that baptism is the immersion of a believer in water but felt that he did not have the right to deny church membership to someone who gave evidence of regeneration and believed he had been baptized. William Kiffin’s response was that he did not have the right to disregard, and thereby overrule, a command of Jesus.

As baptists we’re not denying that paedobaptists have a right to their own perspective, we are simply maintaining the integrity of our own convictions. Our consciences will not permit us to welcome into membership and communion those who have not obeyed Jesus at the point of baptism.

Read the rest here.

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The Central Lie of Pornography

By on March 2, 2012 in Christianity, Theology/Bible

Doug Wilson says that the central problem with pornography is its “didactic and catechetical” nature, which tends to teach men lies about women. He writes:

Porn is a sex ed curriculum put together by liars and incompetents. The central wrong lesson (one easily believed by guys, because it flatters them) is that women have men’s brains encased in women’s bodies. Everybody in the whole world is hot to go. Then, when he gets married to a normal woman, and discovers that all the free sex he thought was going to be on tap . . . isn’t on tap, at least not like what he expected, and he thinks he got a dud, or a frigid one, or something. But no, he got a woman instead of the lie he was used to.

This little nugget is embedded in a larger essay about what constitutes porneia and thus what would be a biblical grounds for divorce. Read the rest of it here.

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The Gospel as Center

By on March 1, 2012 in Book Reviews, Christianity, Theology/Bible

I was very pleased to receive in the mail today a new book edited by D. A. Carson and Tim Keller, The Gospel as Center: Renewing Our Faith and Reforming Our Ministry Practices. This book is the work of pastors associated with The Gospel Coalition, and through fourteen chapters they unpack the theology reflected in the foundational documents of the Coalition. What that means is that this book is primer in the essentials of evangelical faith, and it is written by seasoned pastors. Contributors include D. A. Carson, Timothy Keller, Kevin DeYoung, Philip Ryken, Bryan Chapell, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ligon Duncan, Sam Storms, and many more (full table of contents below). You can order it here. Continue Reading →

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What is a Christian?

By on February 24, 2012 in Christianity, Theology/Bible

Franklin Graham, Jr. scandalized the talking heads on “Morning Joe” earlier this week when he appeared on the program and suggested that President Obama might not be a “Christian” (see video below). I appreciate Rev. Graham and his bold commitment to Christ, but I think there was much in what he said that was muddled and inconsistent and that probably did very little to win folks over to his position. I for one wish that the conversation had gone differently.

Having said that, one item that needed to be clarified was exactly what is meant by the term “Christian.” It was very clear that Graham and his interlocutors were operating on two totally different views of what it means to be a Christian. For Graham, being Christian is synonymous with being born again and with all that the new birth entails. For the “Morning Joe” crew, being a Christian is simply about being personally affiliated with a church or a group that professes to be Christian. The former is a normative definition while the latter is a sociological one. Which definition is right? The normative or the sociological? Continue Reading →

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