I’ve got a couple of small posts that have something in common: They are about someone being wrong.
The Fearsome Pirate himself, Josh Strodtbeck, wrote this brief post on Ten Ways To Know You’re Wrong. I thought it was excellent, and should have linked to it earlier. Nice work Josh.Continue reading “You Know You/They Are Wrong When…”
UPDATE: Joel Hunter has an excellent post regarding the application of Paul’s pastoral approach in I Corinthians 15 to this issue. He also shows how Wright is perceived by the academic left in this very helpful post.
The background of this post is N.T. Wright’s recent interview with the Australian, an interview that’s kept the blogosphere buzzing for a couple of weeks. Wright’s comments about his friend, co-author and debating partner Marcus Borg were guaranteed to animate Wright critics and friends.Continue reading “N.T. Wright, Marcus Borg and A Too Generous Orthodoxy”
And my Kingdom trumps all your atonements. A Holy Week dust-up.
Mark Dever wrote about the meaning of the atonement in Christianity Today. Scot McKnight commented on Dever’s article, taking issue with the idea that the meaning of the atonement is so narrow that we would have a debate about its true meaning during Holy Week. Phil Johnson emerged to flame McKnight for what he says and how he says it.Continue reading “My Atonement is Bigger Than Your Atonement”
“The question is familiar: “What do you mean by missional church?” Even though the term is now used everywhere, there is still confusion about it. As we begin this book, here is a brief description of what we mean by the phrase.Continue reading “Missional Isn’t A Bad Word”
Fact: Calvinism is hotly controversial among Southern Baptists.
Fact: There are many more Calvinistic ministers than confessionally Calvinistic churches in the SBC.
Fact: In an interview process, a candidate has the choice to be open about Calvinism or to keep it under the radar.
In his article on TULIP at Baptist Press, SEBTS President Danny Akin has a good bit to say about integrity and openness regarding a minister’s Calvinism:Continue reading “Under the Radar Calvinism: An Ethical Question”
UPDATE: Scot McKnight is doing a series on the Gospel of Judas. This emerging church scholar is as sane and on top of the game as they come. Read his work.
The rather sordid recent history of the manuscript.
Also: Christianity Today interviews Darrell Bock, who says the “Cainite” Gnostics responsible for the Gospel of Judas were obsessed with rehabilitating the “bad guys” of the Bible. Now there’s a ministry.
To get some perspective on the recent much-trumpeted discovery of the Gnostic “Gospel of Judas”, let’s imagine the following announcement….and trust me, it will take some imagination.Continue reading “The Stupids Do New Testament 101”
God bless Ben Witherington, who takes on the THEOLOGY of Joel Osteen, particularly as it applies to the teaching of Jesus. Thank you, Dr. Witherington, for doing what so few others are willing to do.
American Christianity, if not staying focused on Jesus, gets in big trouble in a culture where entitlement is a tremendous temptation. Paul urged Christians to be “…holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.” That’s Jesus. This is in contrast to a kind of spirituality that grows from a person who is “…puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind…” (Colossians 2:18.) That’s a mind that says “whatever feels good is God.”
We need much teaching like Dr. Witherington does in this post: the explicit contrast of the teaching and meaning of Jesus with the errors of this subtle prosperity method. Jesus described “Your Best Life Now,” but it isn’t the Osteen positive thinking message.
[I also dealt with this subject in a previous IM essay.]
Col. 2:20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations – 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used) – according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
Col 2:17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
I don’t listen to much Christian talk radio. I overdosed on talk radio in the 90’s. I listen to MLB radio at night and to a few broadcasts during the day: White Horse Inn, Issues, etc. Desiring God, James Boice, Bible Answer Man. But Saturday I found myself listening to a rebroadcast of the Michael Medved Show, a staple on the Salem radio network line-up of Christian/politically conservative radio programs that millions of conservative Christians listen to each day.Continue reading “Jesus, Tongue Piercing and The Culture War”
Then we discover what the spiritual life really is. It is not a matter of doing one good thing rather than another, of praying in one way rather than in another. It is not a matter of any special psychological effect in our own soul. It is the silence of our whole being in compunction and adoration before God, in the habitual realization that He is everything and we are nothing, that He is the Center to which all things tend, and to Whom all our actions must be directed. That our life and strength proceed from Him, that both in life and in death we depend entirely on Him, that the whole course of our life is foreknown by Him and falls into the plan of His wise and merciful Providence; that it is absurd to live as though without Him, for ourselves, by ourselves; that all our plans and spiritual ambitions are useless unless they come from Him and that, in the end, the only thing that matters is His glory. -Thomas MertonContinue reading “Serious About Merton?”
UPDATE: Dr. Mohler posted on Osteen in June of ’05. Thanks for the correction.
More than a year after this blog called for the “outing” of Joel Osteen as a motivational speaker pretending to be a Christian pastor, Al Mohler raises questions about Osteen. I say “amen,” and hope many other evangelicals take the time to look at the information I gathered in this post and decide for themselves what Osteen is and is not.Continue reading “Remember Osteen? Al Mohler Speaks Up”
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