Some people have been hurt in the local church. For some people it’s just a rote activity, as Oprah admits, which she learned as a child. Some of us are much smarter than our local church can bear, and some cannot stand how smart the church thinks it is. Worse still for others: it will simply be completely useless. Continue Reading »
This is an essential catholic and evangelical truth: the Word of God does not speak of something the way, for example, I may speak of something I know or have an opinion about. Scripture is God speaking. When Scripture speaks, we hear the voice of God.For most of Protestantism Scripture has become a . . . . Continue Reading »
It never ceases to amaze me how often I forget this profound truth:“The center of God’s revelation is Christ. All that God is to us, He is in Christ. All that we know of God, we know through Christ.” (Henry Eyster Jacobs, Elements of Religion, p. 170).So often we are tempted to . . . . Continue Reading »
Here is a graphic that, Rev. James Douthwaite, at St. Athanasius Lutheran Church in Vienna, Virginia, uses to explain how we should always factor in the Cross when we consider our relationship to God and His relationship to us. (A parishioner made this visual image.)So, in God’s relationship . . . . Continue Reading »
In his commentary on the Song of Songs, Jenson makes the startling claim that “the Bible’s God is sheer contingency.” He elaborates: “He is the one who chooses what he chooses because he chooses it; he is the one who is what he is because he is it; and for whom the . . . . Continue Reading »
I am grateful that Professor (or is it Agent?) Smith took a little time to address some of the concerns I raised regarding his excellent book. He would have been justified to take the route of Stanhope from Charles Williams’ Descent into Hell, who, when asked about the meaning of his play, . . . . Continue Reading »
How many times have you bumped into the expression, “Preach the Gospel, if necessary, use words.” I detest that expression. I think I understand why some people like it, they want to emphasize the need to not only be hearers, but doers of the Word. OK, I get that, but the vast majority . . . . Continue Reading »
Donald Fairbairn ( Life in the Trinity: An Introduction to Theology With the Help of the Church Fathers ) writes, “In the mind of the early church, impassibility implied that God could not be adversely affected or damaged by anything we might do. We cannot ruin the fellowship within . . . . Continue Reading »
A long time ago a very wise man said to me, a newby to the field of apologetics, “you need to ground your apologetics in your theology, not your theology in apologetics.” The point he was making relates to that unresolved debate between presuppositionalism and evidentialism/classical . . . . Continue Reading »
The impassible suffered, the church fathers said. Why? To make passible humanity impassible. As usual (“God became man, to make man God”), a neat chiasm. But what can human impassibility mean? Can it mean that we no longer feel ? That’s what it sounds . . . . Continue Reading »
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