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Same Bible, Very Different God
Last week, an atheist came up to me and asked how I could believe in a God who made parents eat their children. Naturally, I was a little confused. A lot of people have odd ideas about God, but ... -
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The biblical sense of inspiration means God so superintended the writers of Scripture that they wrote what he wanted them to write, disclosing the exact truth he wanted conveyed. -
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Can you Grasp the Word of God?
There’s a story that used to make the rounds about the German theologian Paul Tillich. Tillich’s theology was considered dangerous by many Christians in the U.S. Supposedly one time after delivering a... -
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The Analogy of Faith
When the Reformers broke with Rome and claimed the view that the Bible was to be the supreme authority of the church (sola Scriptura), they were very careful to define basic principles of interpretati... -
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Bible Controversies come from our Hermeneutics
Many of the modern controversies surrounding the Bible—for example, human sexuality, creationism and the “openness” of God—revolve around questions concerning hermeneutics. The science of hermeneutics... -
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Reading the Bible: Examining Each Leaf
Martin Luther said that every Christian ought to read the Bible from cover to cover every year. But, likening the Bible to a forest, he also said that reading the Bible doesn’t become really enjoyable... -
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In the sixteenth century the Reformers declared
In the sixteenth century the Reformers declared their total confidence in what they called the perspicuity of Scripture. What they meant by that technical term was the clarity of Scripture. They maint... -
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The World in which Jesus Lived
The world of Jesus was not the Old Testament Hebrew world. Like the United States now, Israel was multicultural, including a combination of Aramaic, Greek, and Roman influences. The people looked Jewi... -
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40,000 Amalekites
The experience of Barry Taylor, former rock musician and now pastor, suggests a reason. He told me, “In the early 1970s my best friend became a Jesus freak. I thought he was crazy, so I started search... -
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The Challenge of the Old Testament
My brother, who attended a Bible College during a smart-alecky phase in his life, enjoyed shocking groups of believers by sharing his “life verse.” After listening to others quote pious phrases from P... -
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Understanding the Bible is a Struggle
Thomas Merton’s words about the Bible in general apply to the Old Testament in particular: There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible — until we manage to get so used to it that we ... -
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The Old Testament: The Real World
The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account... -
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Some books were no more than assumptions piled on assumptions…. Conclusions were reached on the basis of little or no data at all…. The whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem a... -
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The style [of the Bible] is of the battlefield rather than the cloister. -
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The Mystery of the Trinity
The Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit is a living being. He is one of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity. To explain and illustrate the Trinity is one of the most difficult assignments to a Chr... -
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Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson | A Review
Robinson's Winsome Faith I’ve been reading Marilynne Robinson's novels and essays for some time now. Of her fiction, I’ve read Gilead , reflections of a retired minister written for his ... -
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We are Artful Dodgers
We artful dodgers act as if we do not understand the New Testament, because we realize full well that [if we let on that we did] we should have to change our way of life drastically. That is why we in... -
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A Criticism for Higher Criticism in Biblical Studies
The New Testament scholar Craig Evans makes a compelling observation about how the academy can sometimes hinder the church through overly skeptical scholarship: Some scholars seem to think that th... -
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God's Word...
Addressing the clergy gathered at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 was a pivotal moment in the Protestant Reformation. Luther wrote, “God’s Word is more ancient than you and will also be newer and more... -
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Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of... -
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How Canonicity and Love Go Together
Love Loving the Word of God is a great pursuit, but it’s not always easy. Like most love relationships, there are inevitable highs and lows. And as teachers of the Bible, many of us walk a delicate... -
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As Christians, we must read the Bible not only “for” ourselves, for nourishment and encouragement, but also “against” ourselves at times, to hear what God in Christ is really saying. -
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Tradition is a willingness to read Scripture, taking into account the ways in which it has been read in the past. It is an awareness of the communal dimension of Christian faith, which calls shallow i... -
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When we turn the Bible into an adjective and stick it in front of another loaded work (like manhood, womanhood, politics, economics, marriage, and even equality), we tend to ignore or downplay the par... -
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Sheep Over Goats… Literally?
While in seminary I did some research and editing work for a missiology professor, and I came across a story of a missionary who took Jesus’s illustration of sheep and goats quite literally when worki... -
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One of the core reasons for our Bible engagement breakdown is that so many would-be Bible readers have been sold the mistaken notion that the Bible is a look-it-up-and-find-the-answer handy guide to l... -
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The Wesleyan Quadrilateral
One of the gifts John Wesley left the church is the Quadrilateral. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral refers to the four ways we come to know something as true: Scripture (what the Bible teaches), tradition (... -
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Set Aside Your Culture when Reading the Bible
Rather than translating the culture, then, we need to try to enter the culture. When people want to study the Bible seriously, one of the steps they take is to learn the language. As I teach language ... -
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Written for Us, Not to Us
We like to think of the Bible possessively—my Bible, a rare heritage, a holy treasure, a spiritual heirloom. And well we should. The Bible is fresh and speaks to each of us as God’s revelation of hims... -
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The Greatest Imaginable Number of Readings
Jesus Christ was prone to making comments which seem to support an almost infinite variety of exegesis. A remark like ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and ‘unto God the things that are ...
![The style [of the Bible]](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1630459314129-6ec8a087fe4a?ixid=M3w1NzU0OTZ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxfHxUaGUlMjBCaWJsZXxlbnwxfDJ8fHwxNzEwNTMzNTg4fDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&auto=compress&fit=crop&w=200&h=200)
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