Albert Mohler has a critical review of Michael Licona’s book The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach. While Mohler praises Licona’s masterful defense of the historicity of the resurrection, Mohler takes him to task over his interpretation of Matthew 27:51-54. Mohler argues that Licona’s approach undermines the inerrancy of scripture. Mohler concludes: Michael Licona is a gifted and courageous defender of the Christian faith, and a careful apologist of Christian truth. Our shared hope must be that he will offer a full correction on this crucial question of the Bible’s full truthfulness and trustworthiness. I will be praying for him with the full knowledge that I have been one…
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John Piper Takes On Jim Crow
I have been listening to John Piper’s annual Martin Luther King Day sermons for about thirteen years now. What I have found most compelling about these messages are the moments in which Piper delves into his own background as a boy raised in Greenville, South Carolina during the Jim Crow era. He has told about his home church’s vote to bar blacks from their worship services, about his mother’s heroic actions to escort black guests at his sister’s wedding when the white ushers refused to seat them, about growing up across the tracks from Jesse Jackson, who is roughly the same age as Piper and who also grew up in…
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The Failure of the Megachurch
Tim Suttle has an interesting article at the Huffington Post about “The Failure of the Megachurch.” I don’t agree with the entire analysis here, but this one line is worth highlighting the whole article: If the church is the body of Christ, then the mega-church is a body on steroids.
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Justin Taylor Answers Questions for Rachel Held Evans
Rachel Held Evans has been doing an interview series, and today’s installment is “Ask A Calvinist.” Justin Taylor does a fantastic job fielding questions from Rachel’s readers. I think his engagement is a model of gospel clarity and charity. Be sure to read this one.
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The Bible in Hebrew, Greek and Latin for Free Online
Thanks to Jim Hamilton for pointing us to an amazing free resource. The German Bible Societies have put online the entire texts of the Hebrew Old Testament (BHS), the Greek Old Testament (LXX), the Greek New Testament (NA27 and UBS), and the Vulgate. I do not see that the critical apparatus for any of these versions is included, but this is nonetheless a fantastic resource.
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CT’s Editorial about the SBC Resolution on the NIV
The latest issue of Christianity Today arrived in the mail yesterday, and I was interested to note an editorial about the Southern Baptist Convention’s resolution concerning the 2011 NIV. The article represents the editorial opinion of CT, and predictably it disagrees with Southern Baptists about the new NIV. Readers of this blog will not be surprised that by and large I disagree with CT’s editorial (see my previous posts: reviews of NIV, SBC Resolution, response to translators, response to Bock). But there was at least one item in the article that I do agree with. Here it is: “The only criterion for a good translation is this: Does it accurately…
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Do Dead People Praise God?
Do dead people praise God? The Psalmist says that they don’t. Read for yourself the last two verses from Psalm 115: The dead do not praise the LORD, Nor do any who go down into silence; But as for us, we will bless the LORD From this time forth and forever. Praise the LORD! For those of us grew up in evangelical churches that teach about saints praising God in the afterlife, this text can come across as quite a jolt. Can it really be true that departed saints no longer praise God?
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Was the Apostle Paul Married?
It is generally agreed that the apostle Paul was an unmarried man for the duration of his ministry. Not only does Acts omit any mention of Paul having a wife, but also Paul’s own letters seem to indicate the same. Nevertheless, there is some disagreement over whether or not Paul had been married at an earlier point in his life. In this post, I will argue that Paul was in fact a widower at the time of his writing. I’ll make the case in seven points:
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A Compelling Case against Inerrancy?
I’m reading Thom Stark’s new book arguing against biblical inerrancy, The Human Faces of God (Wipf & Stock, 2011). In the preface Stark says this about proponents of inerrancy: “As for died-in-the-wool fundamentalists and biblical apologists, I have no expectations that anything I have said within the pages that follow will convert them (although I hope it will); neverthless, I have tried to pay them the deep respect of extensively engaging their arguments” (p. xvii). I have to say that I am forearmed against believing that Stark will meet the ideal of that last sentence. I have just perused Stark’s bibliography, and there is not a single reference to the…
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Should Wives Submit to Their Husbands?
The front page of The Nashville Tennessean has an article by Bob Smietana titled “Should wives submit? Debate resurges.” Though Michele Bachmann’s candidacy for president is the catalyst for this piece, the article is not really about her. It’s about how American Evangelicals approach the question of gender roles in the home, in the church, and in society at large. Smietana interviews folks on both sides of this question and even deals briefly with the various interpretations of Ephesians 5 and how those readings play out in the lives of real families. Smietana even uses the proper theological designations for each view, complementarianism and egalitarianism. This is an unusual article,…