Bible
Isn’t the Gospel of John unreliable compared to the Synoptic Gospels?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Jesus, Trinity
Topics: Biblical Reliability
Question: The Jesus Legend persuaded me that the Gospels are generally reliable. But I remain very skeptical of the reliability of the Gospel of John. It was written long after the Synoptics, and its view…
For the Bible Tells Me So?
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Fundamentalism
Oh, those pesky fundamentalists are at it again. Should it be legal for parents to execute their rebellious children based upon Deut 21:18-21? This guy thinks so. And he’s a Bible-believing Christian who is a candidate…
Reflections on the Supremacy of Christ (Part 2)
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, ReKnew
Whereas most Christians place the revelation of God in Christ alongside of other portraits of God and end up with an amalgamated image of God, we at ReKnew encourage believers to base their understanding of…
Reflections on the Supremacy of Christ (Part 1)
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, ReKnew
In my previous post I argued that the Bible tells a story in which the culminating event – the coming of Christ – reframes everything that preceded it. Though it is all inspired, not everything…
When the Last Few Moments Changes Everything
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Picture of God, ReKnew
One of the central things ReKnew wants to accomplish is to challenge followers of Jesus to accept that the self-sacrificial love Jesus revealed on the cross is the definitive, and even the exhaustive, revelation of…
Conflicting Pictures of God
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Jesus, Picture of God, ReKnew
In my ongoing reflections on the ReKnew Manifesto, I’ve spent the last two posts (here and here) arguing that nothing is more important in our life than our mental images of God. If so, then…
If the violent depictions of God in the Bible are not completely accurate, isn’t all of Scripture up for debate?
Category: General
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, Theology
Question: I’m very intrigued by your cruciform hermeneutics and can’t wait for your book (Crucifixion of the Warrior God) to come out. But I have to say that it strikes me as dangerous. You’re basically…
Answering an Objection to a Cross-Centered Approach to Scripture
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Cruciform Theology, Inerrancy, Q&A, Scripture
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement
Through Greg’s Facebook and Twitter, we’ve been getting some great feedback and questions regarding his cross-centered approach to Scripture. Several have voiced questions similar to the reader’s (below), so we thought it would be helpful to post Greg’s answer here on his blog.
Why Did Jesus Curse The Poor Fig Tree?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Jesus, New Testament, Q&A
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence
Why Did Jesus Curse The Fig Tree? One of the strangest episodes recorded in the Gospels is Jesus cursing a fig tree because he was hungry and it didn’t have any figs (Mk 11:12-14; Mt…
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…
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,…
Old Testament Support for the Warfare Worldview
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Essay, Old Testament, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Rebuking Hostile Waters Satan plays a minor role in the Old Testament relative to the New Testament. Instead, the warfare worldview in the Old Testament is expressed in terms of God’s conflict with hostile waters,…
New Testament Support for the Warfare Worldview
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Essay, New Testament, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Warfare in Jesus’ Ministry The theme of God striving to establish his sovereign will (his Kingdom) on earth over and against forces that oppose him is prevalent in the New Testament. In keeping with the…
What is the right way to interpret Revelation?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, End Times, New Testament, Q&A, Revelation
Topics: Biblical Interpretation, End Times
Few biblical topics have captured the imagination of contemporary evangelicals like the book of Revelation. The recent unprecedented success of the Left Behind series is evidence of this popular fascination. Many evangelicals don’t realize that…
Are Christians supposed to tithe?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Christian Life, Finances, New Testament, Q&A, Social Issues, Wealth and Responsibility
Topics: Following Jesus
Question: I and my husband have become increasingly uncomfortable with the many sermons on tithing we’ve been recently hearing at our church. Our pastor insists we tithe 10% to the church regardless of what else…
Revelation 13:8 refers to “everyone whose names have not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life.” How does that square with open theism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Free Will, New Testament, Open Theism, Predestination, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism, Revelation
Topics: End Times, Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Verse: Revelation 13
Three possibilities exist in terms of reconciling Revelation 13:8 with open theism. 1) First, the “from the foundation of the world” clause can attach to either “everyone whose names have not been written” or to…
Revelation 17:8 refers to people whose names haven’t been written in “the book of life from the creation of the world.” Doesn’t this conflict with open theism?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, End Times, New Testament, Open Theism, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism, Revelation
Topics: End Times, Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Verse: Revelation 17
As in Revelation 13:8, the clause “from the foundation” (apo kataboleis) need not mean “from before the foundation” but simply “from the foundation” (= since the foundation). It’s not that names either were or were…
How do you respond to Bart Ehrman’s book, “Misquoting Jesus”?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, New Testament, Q&A
Topics: Biblical Reliability
Question: I just read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and it’s sort of rocked my world. How can we believe the Bible is God’s inerrant Word when we don’t even know what the original Bible…