The incomparable Word of God
- Indestructible, Ps 119:89 Mt 24:35.
- Incorruptible, 1 Pet 1:23ff
- Indispensible, Deut 8:3 Mt 4:4.
- Infallible, Mt 5:18 Jn 17:17.
- Inexhaustible, Ps 92:5.
Jesus interrupted
Hendriksen (NTC on Luke, p 456) comments on the number of times that Jesus is interrupted and the way in which he responds to such interruptions:-
1. When speaking to a crowd, Lk 5:17-19
2. When asleep, Lk 8:22-24
3. When on his way to perform a healing, Lk 8:43-44
4. When conversing with his disciples, Lk 12:12ff
5. When praying, Mk 1:35ff
6. When travelling, Mk 10:46ff
Never is he ‘thrown’. He uses each occasion as a golden opportunity for some priceless teaching or wonderful miracle.…
Boghossian vs McGrew: faith and evidence
Peter Boghossian is a teacher of philosophy, an atheist, and author of a recent book, A Manual For Creating Atheists. Tim McGrew is also a philosophy professor, and a Christian. They met up recently on Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable show.
Let me begin by saying that I don’t particular appreciate the tone of Christian writer and apologist Randal Rauser’s response to this debate. There’s not much point in (rightly) commending McGrew for not resorting to ‘low blows or rhetorical cheap shots’ and then Rauser littering his own impression of Boghossian’s performance with expressions such as ‘ridiculous…complete buffoon…nonsense…nauseating’ and so on.…
Steve Chalke and the Bible
The Rev Steve Chalke, founder of the Oasis Trust and high-profile Christian leader, has been making waves in the evangelical world for some time now. First came his book (co-authored with Alan Mann), The Lost Message of Jesus, in which he rejected the doctrine of ‘penal substitution’. Then, in early 2013, he came out in favour of same-sex marriage.
Most recently, in a paper entitled Restoring Confidence in the Bible, he has attempted to articulate his views about the nature and authority of the Bible. …
History is not bunk
Michael Licona, in the course of an interview discussing his 2010 book The Resurrection of Jesus, makes a number of helpful points about historical investigation. He asserts, for example, that alleged miraculous events do not lie outside the provenance of historical enquiry: any past event that has left some kind of trace can be studied.
Drawing on the work of McCullagh, Licona outlines the following criteria for a successful historical hypothesis:-
- explanatory scope (i.e. successfully accounts for more of the data than competing hypotheses do)
- explanatory power
- plausibility (i.e.
Experimental knowledge
No, this is not another post about science and faith, but a quotation from Puritan Thomas Brooks about the importance of what these days we might call ‘experiential’ knowledge of Christian truth:-
A man that hath that experimental knowledge that accompanies salvation, will from experience tell you, that sin is the greatest evil in the world, for he hath found it so, Rom. 7; that Christ is the one thing necessary, for he hath found Him so, Ps 27:4; that the favor of God is better than life, for he hath found it so, Ps 63:3; that only pardoning mercy makes a man happy, for he hath found it so, Ps 32:1,2; that a wounded spirit is such a burden that none can bear, for he hath found it so, Pr 28:14; that an humble and broken heart is an acceptable sacrifice to God, for he hath found it so, Ps 51:17; that the promises are precious pearls, for he hath found them so, 2 Pet 1:4; that the smiles of God will make up the want of any outward mercy, for he hath found it so, Ps 4:5-8; that only communion with God can make a heaven in a believer’s heart, for he hath found it so, Ps 48:10; that if the Spirit be pleased and obeyed, He will be a Comforter to the soul, for he hath found it so, Jn 15:1-14.
An evangelical approach to the Bible
To be an evangelical is to seek to be true to Scripture because of the conviction that to be true to Scripture is to be true to Christ. A contemporary evangelical approach to Scripture has the possibility of combining appropriate pre-modern, modern and postmodern elements.
1. It will be pre-modern in the sense that it submits to the will of God as revealed in the text and thus puts the human will and its capacity for detached reason or local special pleading under that authority.…
Why do I believe in God?
Here are are three reasons, among many others that might be given:-
I believe in God, because otherwise, I would ultimately have no-one
- to say, ‘Thankyou’ to
- to forgive me
- to complain to
Post-modern evangelism
In his book More Ready Than you Realize – Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix (2002), Brian McLaren gives 8 factors that he sees as summarising post-modern evangelism:-
1. The Relational Factor – count conversations not conversions.
2. The Narrative Factor – listen to their story, share your story and share God’s story, not just propositions or formulas.
3. The Communal Factor – expect conversion to normally occur in the context of authentic Christian community, not just in the context of information.…
Confessions of a virtual inerrantist
Recent publication of a book exploring Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy has got me thinking again about this topic.
Readers of Walking With Giants will know that I do not subscribe to a formal doctrine of inerrancy. I have outlined my reasons for this, and these include:-
Inerrancy is an inappropriate term. It is not appropriate for the very different kinds of literature we find in the Bible. It is easy to see what it would mean for a telephone directory to be regarded as ‘inerrant’, but not a psalm.…