Among the must-have toys of Christmas 1975 was the pet rock. Advertising executive Gary Dahl conceived the idea while listening to others complain about the hassles of animate pets, and then his marketing instincts kicked in. He gathered ordinary stones,
Oh! Little town of Newtown, how still and sad we see thee lie. Newtown. About 100 miles from the little town where I grew up. That Connecticut bedroom village where local industries long manufactured fire hoses and folding boxes. The town where the game Scrabble began. The bucolic community where pizza places are called Carminuccioâs and elementary schools are called Sandy Hook. The New England hamlet where names of streets describe its pastoral landscape, names like Head of Meadows, Boggs Hill and Deep Brook.
The Christmas story is about Jesus being born into the family of Mary and Joseph. Have you ever considered what other options there were for which type of family Jesus could have been born into? We could explore these possibilities by asking, âWhat early life experiences do we think could best prepare Jesus for his later public ministry?â Let me suggest a context for this kind of musing. Imagine you were invited to observe that special planning session in eternity past when the Godhead considered creating this world and mapping out a plan for our redemption. Of course this couldnât happen, but pretend this divine session was like one of our committee meetings. The topic on âtodayâsâ agenda is âWhat is the best early life experience preparation for Jesus to be formed for his distinctive divine-human role as Messiah and Savior of the world?â
This week the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School have grabbed our attention for understandable reasons. The atrocity of killing 26 people, mostly children in their first grade classroom, is inconceivable to all who think about the event. Though I do not know any of the families affected, as a parent and grandparent, I have felt deep sorrow since that time, and have prayed for those who had such great losses. One of the classes I teach for Biolaâs School of Education is predominantly elementary school teachers. An assignment was already posted on Friday for interaction in an online discussion group, but I sensed the need to âchange the subjectâ and invite these teachers to talk about the dayâs events. One of the elementary school teachers was really struggling that day, and wrote her concerns and questions in the blog. She expressed her heartache for the parents and their children, and her desire to present God as a God of love and compassion. Yet, she was stuck on the question, âHow could a loving God allow something like this to happen?â Realizing none of us can fully explain the âwhysâ of tragedy in our world, I decided to respond with the words that follow:
The custom of giving gifts at Christmas probably began when wise men arrived from the east with lavish gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for the newborn King. These important, wealthy and educated men had traveled far with camels and servants to find and worship the newborn King of the Jews. But there were not three of them.
Con Campbellâs new book, Paul and Union with Christ: An Exegetical and Theological Study (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012, 479 pages, $34.99 softcover) is one of the most important books Iâve read in a long time. I predict that scholars and serious students of the Bible will be referring to this book for years to come. The reason is simple: Campbell has meticulously and even-handedly taken one of the Apostle Paulâs central themes, union with Christ, and has painstakingly examined it both through an exegetical and a theological lens.
What was the sin of Nadab and Abihu? The text of Leviticus 10:1-7 is ultimately unclear about this. One Pentateuch scholar aptly calls this an instance of âintentional ambiguityâ on the part of the storyteller/author (see Schnittjer, 99, 324, 413-414). So perhaps we will never know the answer for sure. Nevertheless, many people have contemplated this question, and there are many suggestions out there. How do we evaluate the relative merits of these suggestions? Is there a way to distinguish the plausible theories from the implausible ones? I think so.
Crossway has just released a book I wrote on the doctrine of divine impassibility. The title is God is Impassible and Impassioned: Toward a Theology of Divine Emotion.
I just returned from the Evangelical Theological Society annual meetings in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I picked up a copy of D. A. Carsonâs new little book, Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed (Crossway). On the taxi ride from the airport to the conference, I briefly tried to share the Lord with a taxi driver named Hassan. We were about a minute into the conversation when Hassan commented rather ardently, âWe Muslims believe that Jesus is a prophet, and not the son of God.â I explained to him that Christians donât believe that God had physical relations with Mary that led to her pregnancy, as many Muslims assume and consider blasphemous. The problem for dialogue with Muslims like Hassan is that many Muslims think that is precisely what we Christians mean when we use the expression âSon of Godâ in reference to Jesusâwhich, of course, we donât. So what if you were a Bible translator in a Muslim country and knew that many of your readers would make the same assumption that Hassan did about the expression âSon of Godâ? Perhaps you should change the words âSon of Godâ to something else that is proximate in meaning but less offensive. Or maybe you shouldnâtâŠ
The colors and smells of fall have arrived, even here in southern California. Red, yellow, gold and peach-colored roses, fresh from my garden, are tucked into a round pumpkin. Homemade pumpkin bread, smelling of cinnamon and ginger is fresh from the oven and ready to be tucked into our mouths. Thanksgiving is almost here.
Life can be busy. This just seems to be a reality of life. And especially within the Christian world, busyness sometimes seems to translate into godliness. I have known this to be true in my own life. I have the privilege to teach each week at the seminary and interact with students and colleagues regarding very important eternal matters. I also served as the lead pastor of a church on a âpart-timeâ basis. Iâm married with two little boys who were always wanting daddyâs time. And I was finishing my dissertation for my doctorate. Just a little busy!
Every now and then It is good to be surrounded by people who cause us to consider the stewardship of our life. Being at the global summit, Transform World 2012, has caused me to do just that. Perhaps this can be of encouragement to you.
Are you studying Greek and need to be reminded that it is worth all the work? Or have you spent the time learning the basics of the Greek language and want to being to learn how to apply it to Scripture? There is a new book that nicely combines the study of New Testament Greek and a devotional reading of the Bible.
How would you like to be going into exile? Leaving all you have knownâyour home, your beautiful yard and fields, your places of repose and safety, your income earning ability? Two of my friends are going into exile this fall. One, the pastor of a church, is being exiled by leaders who had a different âvisionâ for the church than he had. Never mind that he had served there faithfully for over a dozen yearsâyes, he had preached the Word, and yes, he had visited the sickâbut, well, it wasnât enough. He is facing the exile of not having a job, not knowing the future and not being able to see what God has ahead for him.
The recent statistics released by The Pew Forum on Religious & Public Life showing a decline among Americans who consider themselves religious are sure to alarm many concerned about the spiritual state of the nation. For evangelicals, the most potentially jarring of these statistics shows that for the first time in its history the United States does not have a Protestant majority. The study found that about 20% of Americans say they have no religious affiliation, an increase from 15% in the last five years. The sobering reality in all this for evangelicals is that, although our churches continue to grow, our evangelistic effectiveness has significantly lagged behind the US population growth. This study is a clear challenge to evangelicals to live up to our name and proclaim the good news in a culture where we can no longer assume common theological foundations. Evangelical Christians have to learn to preach the gospel in a culture where we are no longer part of the Protestant majority. This is not necessarily a bad thing though. A few observations about the data shows that the picture is not as bleak as it may seem.
What is the shortest verse in the New Testament? Did you respond âJesus weptâ? (Buzzer sound) No, that is the third shortest verse in the New Testament.
Mentoring may be a âbuzz-wordâ in the business world, but the practice of developing another person for specific purposes of skill or leadership development has been around since the beginning of civilization. It is evident throughout Scripture â especially in the ministries of Jesus and Paul. However, the integration of mentoring for ministry preparation within academic settings has built in problems. SO WHY BOTHER? For many reasons...
Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. Somehow I seem to be lacking the creativity gene necessary to enjoy thinking up and assembling an ingenious costume. For me that process is not enjoyable; it is a laborious chore. It wasnât always that way. Of course, as a young child, we donât have much of a choice about whether we dress up for Halloween or what we wear. Our parents make those choices, and their primary criterion for a costume seems to be cuteness. And how hard is it to make a little child look cute?
The latest news on historical Jesus research can now be found in⊠Popular Mechanics? Iâm used to perusing Popular Mechanics to see flying cars, homemade submarines, and ads for power tools. But Popular Mechanics published a reconstructed picture of Jesus (quite a while ago, but I just noticed it!). Iâll show you the picture and explain it in just a bit. But first, I want you to see some of my favorite portraits of Jesus. My students have become accustomed to seeing these non-traditional pictures of Jesus decorating my powerpoint lecture notes. This picture of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (from the Via Latina catacomb, ca. 340-350) was painted by a Roman, so Jesus and the woman both have Roman hairstyles and clothing. No beard on Jesus!
A few weeks ago I put up a post with the title: âSomething About the Book of Romans that will Really Help You âGetâ It.â (Click HERE to read it.) I rounded out that article with a list of questions from Romans to help people see the importance of the ethnic issues going on in the background of the letter to the Romans. Some people expressed surprise that there were so many questions in the book of Romansâitâs not something that they had noticed before. Well, there are a whole lot more questions in Romans than the ones I listed. Questions are one of the ways Paul moves his argument forward. Do you want to see how many questions there are?
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