Allow me to introduce myself. First and foremost, I’m a sinner saved by grace. I’m a husband and a father. I’ve been a youth leader, Sunday school teacher, deacon and elder. I served in the Air Force for thirty years. I was a three-sport letterman in high school, played college football, and played seven years of football overseas while in the Air Force. I like sports, action movies, being in control, and I would never...
This last week, I learned about Earthing. If this sounds like a hippie-influenced, granola-society type of activity… you’re probably right. Though it’s proponents claim that there is scientific research to validate the claims of this practice, the basic gist is that we as humans accumulate loads of electron imbalances from the stress, emotions, work, and events of life throughout the day. We amass “free radicals,” which are atoms, molecules, or ions with unpaired electrons in...
People wonder if I’m gay. I know because kids in school used to ask me. When I replied with silence, they called me a fag and went on their way. If bullies wondered about my sexuality, then so did family, friends, people at church. They were probably just too afraid (or too nice) to ask. I’ve had years to think about it: if someone asked if I’m gay, how would I answer? Saying “no” risks...
Sound hermeneutics requires an understanding of how communication works. The Bible, after all, is God’s authoritative communication to us. There are three components of communication: words, genre, and message. “Words” refers to what we say; “genre” to the way we say it; and “message” to the reason for saying it.[1] When we decide to communicate, we first determine the point we want to make (message), then the way we want to say it (genre), and...
I know it’s the 21st century, but here’s the thing: I’m a Christian. By definition, I have old-school beliefs. That might be a newsflash to the critics, who often react to biblical, traditional and altogether unsurprising beliefs with dropped jaws, as if Christians haven’t preached these things for two thousand years: “Do you seriously believe that?” Yes. Yes, I do. I still believe the Bible is the word of God. It’s true and inspired and...
Near the top of my New Earth wish list is that God will set up a 3D IMAX theater where we can watch the real-life Bible movie. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see Moses part the actual Red Sea instead of Charlton Heston part a tray of jello? I want to see Adam formed from the dust, the fall of Jericho, Elijah’s whirlwind, the hand writing on the wall—everything! But while in the shadowlands, we...
As we find ourselves in another Christmas season, it is always good to return to the Gospels and remind ourselves why it is we celebrate. For me, that means returning to Matthew’s account of the birth of Christ, reading and pondering Matthew’s side of the story. But this story of the birth of a baby in Bethlehem has a much larger meta-narrative running through the background that transforms the whole of Matthew’s Gospel. The Beginning...
Yesterday, Richard Beck of Experimental Theology wrote a post on what the word “biblical” means. As will be obvious, I don’t much care for what he had to say. In fact, it made me so grumpy that I thought I’d respond. I hope he takes it as a compliment. In his piece he concludes: Biblical is a sociological stress test. When groups gather…to have a conversation about what is or is not biblical they are engaging...
Disclaimer time: the views expressed here do not represent you know, whoever disagrees with them. Oliver O’Donovan’s The Desire of Nations is a difficult but spectacular book that seeks to ‘rediscover the roots of political theology’. It is essentially a long theological exposition of the concept of authority in the Bible, with a focus on the way in which earthly authorities are both established and relativized by the advent of God’s authority in Jesus. I...
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