Month: December 2008
Plutarch’s Insightful Warfare Worldview
Category: General
Hello blogging community. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and will enjoy a happy new year. As I mentioned in my previous post, in my opinion, Plutarch (late first and early second century)…
The Paradox of Plutarch and Early Christian Theology
Category: General
Hi folks, Hope you’re all enjoying the Holiday season. I am quite a bit, largely because (you guessed it) I’ve been enjoying my study of the Middle Platonist philosopher Plutarch. Where Mr. Magoo failed, Plutarch…
Why I Believe in the Virginal Conception of Jesus
Category: General
Hello blogging friends, Well, its close to Christmas, so I thought I’d reflect on a Christmas issue. I’ve gotten a number of e-mails from people the last few weeks asking me about the “virgin birth.”…
Don’t be a Scrooge!
Category: General
My ritual for “getting into the Christmas spirit” each year is to watch Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (my favorite since childhood), Charlie Brown’s Christmas and the original Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Usually these hokey childhood…
Eating Mercifully Documentary
Category: Sermons and Video Clips
Tags: Animals
Topics: Creation Care
Greg plays a role in a newly released short documentary addressing faith and the proper treatment of animals. It’s only 26 minutes long, but it is eye-opening and will help people of faith examine the…
Kingdom Centeredness
Category: Essays
Tags: Discipleship, Essay, Kingdom Living
Topics: Following Jesus
A Silent Center white knuckles cling against peace and cries for release into chaos flying, centrifugal to death in attempt to salvage human breath for breathing, through peeling purge that burns away flesh to…
Following Jesus Doesn’t Work
Category: General
Tags: Discipleship, Kingdom Living
Topics: Following Jesus
I met a middle aged woman one day who told me she had given up on Christianity. “It just didn’t work for me,” she said. My response was: “What on earth made you think Jesus…
When Did Jesus Bind the Strongman?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, New Testament, Q&A
Topics: Atonement and The Cross, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Question: In Luke 11:21-22 Jesus said: “When a strong man, with all his weapons ready, guards his own house, all his belongings are safe. But when a stronger man attacks him and defeats him, he…
Living With a Kingdom Consciousness
Category: Essays
Tags: Discipleship, Essay, Kingdom Living
Topics: Following Jesus
What Is the Kingdom of God? I want to begin by asking, “What is the kingdom of God?” This may seem like a rather obvious question. We all know what the Kingdom of God is,…
Is Open Theism Incompatible With a Chalcedonian Christology?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Incarnation, Q&A
Topics: Christology, Defending the Open View
Question: The Chalcedonian Creed says Jesus was “fully God and fully human” and that these “two natures” remained distinct in the Incarnation, even though Jesus was one united person. I’m told that part of the…
Colson’s God & Government: A Review
Category: General
Tags: Book Reviews, Reviews
Chuck Colson is one of the most respected, influential voices in the modern Evangelical movement. His book God & Government: An Insider’s View on the Boundaries Between Faith & Politics (Zondervan, 2007) is an important…
How do I avoid feeling like God is absent?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Open Theism, Q&A, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Hearing God, Prayer
Question: I used to see God involved in everything and used to believe every event expressed God’s will. After my wife and I lost our child in a tragic accident, and as a result of…
Gospel “Contradictions” and Orality Studies
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Bible, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
* This essay has been adopted from G. Boyd and Paul Eddy, Lord or Legend? (Baker, 2007). One of the standard tests historians put to ancient documents to assess their veracity is self-consistency. Generally speaking,…
Unfulfilled Prophecies and the Open Future
Category: General
Hello blogger friends, I’ve been reading Volume II of John Goldingay’s excellent two volume work, Old Testament Theology, 2 Vols (IVP, 2006). Among other things, Goldingay highlights an important, but almost universally overlooked, aspect of…