Category: Theology
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Alternative Righteousness
Jesus’ Greatest Hits For the longest time, I thought of the Sermon on the Mount as a hodgepodge of wise sayings, a list of proverbs and parables strung together in some loosely coherent fashion. Then, I heard Dallas Willard say that the Sermon actually is a true, complete, and singular sermon. While Jesus may not…
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Beginning with James
Not in a Vacuum: Intertextual Dialectics Some scholars contend that the books of the New Testament were written in dialogue one with another, such that no book was written in a vacuum, but dialectically in contradistinction one with another: each book was written to contend with, correct, or dialogue with some other book. In a…
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Through the Lens of Job
First things first Scholars have long conceded that the oldest book of the Bible, of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, is the Book of Job, which can be dated to about 2000 BC. The Book of Job was written well before any of the other books of the Old Testament were written, the earliest…
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Freewill and the Flood
A Pressing Question Whoever has read Genesis knows it starts out with God giving a choice to Adam and Eve, which results in their falling from grace and being cast out of the Garden of Eden. From this then follows a whole lot of sinning by their many descendants. Things get so out of control…
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The Problem of Evil
Stating the Problem The problem of evil is a rather obvious problem in the world, visceral as it is in the common experience of humanity. Many have taken a stab at it, either to prove or disprove the existence of the Almighty, who seems to rather hide away within the whole matter. Even the biblical…
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Evil, the Absence of Good?
God on the Hook The problem of evil is apparently a problem for God, so much so that Christian theologians have been trying for centuries to get God off the hook, trying to clear his name in all this mess of evil in the world. For, if God is God, then whence comes evil? That…
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Biblical Prophecy
A Range of Prophecy Prophecy in the Bible can be viewed as a mountain range, which when looking at it straight-on, we might only see one peak, but when looking at it from even a slight angle, we see the various peaks along a ridge that once appeared to be one. In a very similar…
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What is faith?
A little about faith According to the author of the Book of Hebrews, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (11:1, KJV). Seemingly in line with the thought of this verse, oftentimes, I have heard the sentiment that faith is something that you just have against all odds,…
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The various Messiahs of the NT and the early churches’ conflicts
Conflict Abounds That there was conflict in the early church should come as no surprise, given the controversies of Acts 6, 10, and 15; of Galatians 1, Philippians 4, Ephesians 2, and the like–let alone the division amongst the Twelve so often recounted in the Gospels. Again, that there was conflict in the early church…
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The Holy Bible: A Particular Book
The Simple is Complex The Bible is a particular book about a particular people in a particular place at a particular time with a particular message. It was written to and for a certain group of people in their given context at their given time to speak to them about their given circumstance and circumstances.…
