Bill Nye the Science Guy recently produced a video that has gone viral (see above). It features “The Science Guy” castigating parents who teach creationism to their children. In short, he thinks parents should not be allowed to teach their children such a thing. If parents want to believe in fairy tales like creationism, that is fine. But it is not fine—according to “The Science Guy”—for parents to foist those fairy tales on their children.
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Van Neste critiques Joel Green’s ethics dictionary
In the Fall issue of JBMW, Ray Van Neste has a hard-hitting review of Joel Green’s Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics (Baker, 2011). He observes that the volume is weak on biblical authority and biblical sexuality. In his conclusion, Van Neste writes, The volume as a whole is alarming and disappointing. I’ve focused primarily on entries concerning sexual ethics since they illustrate the dictionary’s general approach to scripture and since these issues are some of the most significant ethical issues facing the church today. The value of a tool is seen in how it works at the point of greatest pressure. At such points, Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics fails.
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A Plan To Read the Greek New Testament in One Year
Someone just asked me on Facebook if I knew of any plans to read the Greek New Testament in a year. Well as a matter of fact, I do. I created such a plan a couple of years ago. For the most part, it tracks pretty closely with Lee Irons’ excellent schedule for reading the Greek New Testament in a year. My plan, however, varies a little bit. Because John’s writing is simpler Greek, my schedule goes through John’s Gospel at a faster pace than Irons’. As a result, there are no readings scheduled at the end of the year from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve. These open dates…
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A plan to read through the Bible in 2014
In years past, my customary mode for reading the Bible through every year involved starting in Genesis and reading right through to Revelation. I estimated that about four chapters per day would get me through in under a year’s time. The method worked reasonably well, but it wasn’t without its problems. Sometimes I would miss a day (or days) and get behind, and I had no way to keep up with my progress. I needed a schedule so that I could keep myself accountable for finishing in a year.
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Let every heart prepare Him room!
How could there possibly be anything more mysterious and wonderful than the incarnation of Jesus Christ? God became a man. God took on mortal human flesh and became subject to all the things that every other mortal is subject to. He sneezed. He coughed. He got headaches and an upset stomach. Every morning he got up, shook the dust out of His hair, and put his hand to the plow in his Father’s field. Jesus Christ was not only subject to sickness, but also to death. The eternal Son of God was die-able. In fact, he did die. And three days later, what was mortal became swallowed up by immortality…
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When Mary “committed” adultery
When Mary turned up pregnant, everyone assumed that she was guilty of adultery. We all know now that this assumption was a false one, but it was nevertheless what folks thought. It’s precisely why Joseph sought to divorce her. Until an angel appeared to tell him otherwise, he assumed that Mary’s pregnancy came about by the usual means and that she had been unfaithful. But a most unusual messenger showed up to disabuse Joseph of his error. The angel also told Joseph that he must marry Mary and adopt her son as his own. Joseph believed God’s word against appearances, and Joseph obeyed. As a result, Jesus was adopted into…
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Letting go of family rancor at Christmas
Via Igniter Media.
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Who determines meaning? Author, text, or reader? Some thoughts on 1 Timothy 1:8.
How can you tell the difference between a good interpretation of a text and a bad interpretation? This is the fundamental question that every reader has to answer in trying to understand the message of scripture. The traditional approach has been to recognize the author as the ground and the guide of textual meaning. If you want to know the meaning of the text, then you must discern the author’s intent in writing that text.
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The Christmas Scale
The guys from Igniter Media seem to have a ceaseless flow of creative material. Some devotional, some humorous, but all really well done. Last year, they released “The Christmas Scale,” and it’s a classic. Watch it above. Purchase it here.
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Christmas in Kentucky
On his most recent Christmas album, Steven Curtis Chapman sings a song about returning to his hometown of Paducah, Kentucky for Christmas. One might expect a song like this one to be sappy nostalgia along the lines of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” or “Tennessee Christmas,” but it’s not. This is not the song of a child, but the song of a grown man who’s walked long enough with God to know that Christ came not just for folks like him but for the whole world. It’s the best news in the world. I love this song. In the video above, you can hear the song in its entirety as…