I am often asked where I’ve gone to seminary. Usually after speaking with someone I’ve recently met, and especially when visiting a church. I fully understand where this question comes from. It is, unfortunately rare to find someone who is well trained Biblically, theologically, philosophically, and apologetically. So when we run across someone who has such specialized training, it is easy to assume they pursued formal education in order to obtain it. ...
When casting light on the low view of women put forth in the Koran, it is popular for opponents to say something along the lines of “Oh yeah? Well what about the low view of women in the Bible?!”. So in an attempt to dispel the myth that the Bible and the Koran are in any way similar as to their views on women, I want to present the From Mary Jo Sharp’s site: ...
One of my favorite quotes of all time is when Martin Luther, when pressed as to whether he would stand on his convictions even in the face of certain death, said Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. While I disagree with many of the doctrines that have come about as a result of the reformation, I do salute the brave men who fought for their convictions in spite of the fierce oppression leveled against them ...
[HT Wintery Knight] “[A]s long as the family and the myth of the family and the myth of maternity and the maternal instinct are not destroyed, women will still be oppressed…. No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” ~ Simone de Beauvoir, “Sex, Society, and the Female Dilemma,” Saturday Review, June 14, 1975. ...
This is part of my “dispelling the notion that the Bible contradicts itself” series. Saul asking David for 100 foreskins for the hand of his daughter, hardly loving your neighbour eh? Saul’s request was not for the foreskins of just any old person, but Philistines, who were under judgement of God for crimes He outlined and charged them with long before He directed Israel to be the nation to go and punish them. ...
[HT Brian Auten] Mormons rarely debate their beliefs in public, and in this epic clash on the topic of whether Mormonism can legitimately be considered a Christian denomination. Here is the audio courtesy of Bring to You Apologetics. If you like Dr Martin’s work here, you might want to consider buying his excellent counter-cult book, Kingdom of the Cults. The Pilgrim has an interesting comment: In 2005, Van Hale publicly announced that he cannot accept the Book of Mormon as real history about real people (see here). I’m not sure if his debate years earlier with Dr. Martin brought him to that point, but you never know. ...
RC Sproul writes: Yes, the faith we exercise is our faith. God does not do the believing for us. When I respond to Christ, it is my response, my faith, my trust that is being exercised. The issue, however, goes deeper. The question still remains: “Do I cooperate with God’s grace before I am born again, or does the cooperation occur after?” Another way of asking this question is to ask if regeneration is monergistic or synergistic. Is it operative or cooperative? Is it effectual or dependent? ...
The rapid growth of social media platforms and technologies have flattened and democratized the communications environment in ways we are just beginning to comprehend. - Dennis J. Moynihan, U.S. Navy’s Chief of Information (This quote is from a synopsis titled ’ Navy’s social-media handbook is required reading for political campaigners’. It has been recommended to business as well, and I would also highly recommend this to church businesses.) A friend of mine once asked me why I thought it was the case that so many churches and ministries have failed to adopt a social media strategy. My answer for this, borne out of my deep seated cynicism for what Udo Middleman rightly calls " The Market-Driven Church", is quite simple: They are afraid of the equalizing effect social media has. ...
A common thorn in the side of most Calvinists is Ephesians 2:8 which reads For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, To keep with the reformed doctrine of irresistible grace (ie. men being robots) they prefer to make the case that faith is included in the gift given from God. The problem with your interpretation is that if faith is included in what is gifted to us then it makes the through (διὰ) superfluous and unnecessary given the context. ...
Few resources provide a more powerful insight as to the nature of the early Christian church than Eusebius of Caesarea and his work History of the Christian Church. Here are a few stories from Eusebuis’s work that I particularly love. The plague of Rome (aka plague of Cyprian) But still worse was the pestilence which consumed entire houses and families, and especially those whom the famine was not able to destroy because of their abundance of food. Thus men of wealth, rulers and governors and multitudes in office, as if left by the famine on purpose for the pestilence, suffered swift and speedy death. Every place therefore was full of lamentation; in every lane and market-place and street there was nothing else to be seen or heard than tears, with the customary instruments and the voices of the mourners. ...