Mike Heiser makes a compelling case against referring to the rabbinical authors uncritically when trying to understand the Bible: You have to realize appealing to rabbis means nothing. Rabbinic thought and biblical thought (and academic work) are miles apart. Hey Christians enamored with rabbis: The rabbis can’t even get the messiah right (or, to be …
Category: Bible
Did Jesus come to make bad people good?
A common evangelical slogan, which I think comes from a Ravi Zacharias sermon is: Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, he came to make dead people live. While I think I agree with the main point of this phrase (Christianity is not merely morality), I usually hear it said in a way that …
Is the author of Job an unreliable narrator?
The literary device of an unreliable narrator may make an appearance in Job. The literary device is essentially when a narrator presents reality in a way that contradicts the logic of the narrative. Some unreliable narrators could be crazy people like the narrator of Fight Club, deceitful gods as in Aristophanes’ Frogs, in the Dark Knight, Heath …
Dallas Willard on the Beatitudes
Dallas Willard‘s understanding of the Beatitudes: It will help us know what to do—and what not to do—with the Beatitudes if we can discover what Jesus himself was doing with them. That should be the key to understanding them, for after all they are his Beatitudes, not ours to make of them what we will. …
Proverbs 31: A Biblical Interpretation Case Study
In an article at Relevant magazine, a competent and articulate writer named Lauren Oquist challenges readers of her article to stop obsessing over the Proverbs 31 woman. The point of this post is not to be critical of the author of the post quoted (though I will be critical of her post), the point is …
Jesus and Matthew 6:33
Matthew 6:33: Now, see first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and these things will be added to you.[1] Introduction Everybody wants to be happy and every good wandering philosopher tries to tell them how to do it. Matthew 5-7 is Jesus’ summary treatise on human happiness or how to live an honorable life.[2] …
Common Misconceptions Concerning Christian Discipleship
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis explains that knowing a bit of theology is important for Christians now, in a way that it was not in the past: …In the old days, when there was less education and discussion, perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God. But it …
In all toil there is profit
In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. (Proverbs 14:23 ESV) The proverb above is one I have always associated with one particular type of talk: talking about what you’re going to do instead of doing it. I think that this aspect is true, but incomplete. I have overly limited …
John Wesley on Foreknowledge and Election
Below, you’ll find 1 Peter 1:1-2 and John Wesley’s comments on vs 2. Over all, I find what he says to be convincing. The idea that the descriptions of God’s fore or after knowledge in the Bible are metaphorical is perfectly reasonable. It is just as much true that predestination is a metaphor as it …
Sola Scriptura
Edward Feser has three posts on the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura (only the Bible) over at his blog. Here is Feser’s summary of a summary of the Jesuit critique of sola scriptura: You’ll recall that the early Jesuit critique of sola scriptura cited by Feyerabend maintains that (a) scripture alone can never tell you what counts as …