Essay
Is there Archeological Support for the Reliability of the Gospels?
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
One of the many tests historians typically submit documents to in accessing their historical reliability concerns the extent to which archeology supports or undermines the historic claims the document makes. So we need to investigate…
Corroborating Historical Evidence of the New Testament
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, New Testament
Topics: Biblical Reliability
One often finds skeptics arguing that if the events recorded in New Testament actually took place, we should expect to find others of the time mentioning them. Yet, they argue, we find nothing but silence…
Christians and Politics: What are the different views?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Politics, Social Issues
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
How involved should Christians be in secular politics? Throughout history, Christians have embraced a number of different perspectives on this issue. These perspectives can basically be broken down into three groups. First, some Christians believe…
Must wives submit to husbands?
Category: Essays
Tags: Christian Life, Essay, Marriage, Relationships
Topics: Relationships
The apostle Paul writes: Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the…
How should evangelicals “do” theology?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Theological Method, Theology
Topics: Theological Method
A central debate among evangelical theologians concerns the question of theological method. In other words, how should we “do” theology? All evangelical Christians believe the Bible is God’s inspired revelation. Thus, evangelicals agree that Scripture…
Response to the September 11th attacks
Category: Essays
Tags: Current Events, Essay, Free Will, Open Theism, Predestination
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues, The Problem of Evil
Was God Punishing Us? Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, many people have asked the question, “Why did God allow this to happen?” In response, some Christian…
Response to Bruce Ware’s “Defining Evangelicalism’s Boundaries: Is Open Theism Evangelical?”
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Responding to Objections
The following essay was written in response to Bruce Ware’s article, “Defining Evangelicalism’s Boundaries: Is Open Theism Evangelical?” Published in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, June 2002. Introduction I want to begin by…
A Brief Outline and Defense of the Open View
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View, Open Theism What it is and is not
While many Christians have found the open view of the future to be the most helpful and accurate view of God’s foreknowledge of the future based on biblical, philosophical, and experiential evidence, others have criticized…
Scientific Support for the Open View
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View
If a position is true, every avenue of reflection ought to point in its direction. What follows are two more “pointers” to the view that the future is at least partly open (indefinite, composed of…
Neo-Molinism and the Infinite Intelligence of God
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism
Topics: Defending the Open View
Classical Molinism holds that, since God is omniscient and knows all truths, he knows not only what every agent will do in the future, but also what every agent would have done in every other…
Five Brief Philosophical Arguments for the Open View
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Open Theism, Philosophy
Topics: Defending the Open View
Introduction I believe that sound philosophical arguments support the open view in which God doesn’t foreknow the future free decisions of humans. My main reasons for holding this view are biblical and theological, but since…
Finding an Alternative Jesus
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Jesus
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
The “Newly Discovered” Jesus One of the most common, and most disturbing, refrains heard in the media’s coverage of contemporary radical views of Christ is that New Testament scholars have recently “discovered” new sources of…
The Jesus Seminar and the Reliability of the Gospels
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Gospels, Jesus, New Testament
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
The Jesus Seminar The primary driving force behind the popular media’s present preoccupation with liberal views of Jesus has been the Jesus Seminar. This Seminar, first convened in 1985 by Robert Funk, is a gathering…
Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Resurrection
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
Trying to get around the Resurrection While Jesus’ life, claims, and miraculous ministry set him far apart from all other human beings, it is his resurrection more than anything else that stamps him as the…
Is Jesus Unique?
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Jesus
Topics: Jesus: Lord or Legend
The Search for a Non-Unique Jesus Built into the naturalistic assumption that drives the liberal New Testament search for the “man behind the myth” is the notion that, whoever Jesus was, he cannot have been…
Getting Free From the Sin of Sodom: Living With Outrageous Generosity
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Kingdom Living, Wealth and Responsibility
Topics: Following Jesus
Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. Erich Fromm Jesus, the poor and the greedy Though it’s often missed by American…
Racism: Why Whites have Trouble “Getting It”
Category: Essays
Tags: Diversity, Essay, Kingdom Living, Racism, Social Issues
Topics: Ethical, Cultural and Political Issues
I’m a member of a special task group on racial reconciliation that consists of a dozen or so pastors from around the Twin Cities. We’ve been meeting periodically for the past year or so in…