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Clement of Rome, Chapter 42, is one of the earliest references to bishops outside of the New Testament. The apostles have preached the Gospel to us from Or, “by the command of.” the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ [has done so] from Or, “by the command of.” God. Christ therefore was sent forth by God,…

John Piper has stated in his BLOG that the tornados that struck the Twin Cities were God’s judgment on the Lutheran body meeting to decide the place of homosexuals in the ordained ministry in the ELCA church. The secular press has picked up the story.

Epigenetics and Original Sin Interesting thought? That there’s more to our inheritance than merely the set of genes that are passed down. Somehow our behavior is passed down as well. The old nature vs nurture argument has shifted dramatically in the direction of nurture and away from the old mechanistic view that it’s all in…

Christians often misuse the word “mystery” to describe something that they can’t understand or more particularly something that the believe God has not revealed. The Greek word, “musterion”, translated in English as “mystery” meant something totally different. Rather than being something hidden to believers, a “mystery” is something which is only hidden now to unbelievers.…

I was asked about the following paper: http://www.thirdmill.org/files/english/html/nt/NT.h.Hill.Wright.html The question was “What do I think about this paper?” Well, since you asked, here’s my 2c worth… The good part is that the author of this paper has the core point of Wright correct. That’s not always the case with Wright’s critics. The central point is…

Wright comments that Saunder’s correctly understands that the New Perspective has at least one commonality with the Reformed tradition in that “it sees the Jewish Law as a good thing now fulfilled, rather than (as in much Lutheran thought) a bad thing now abolished.” As a theonomist, how do you think you would modify the…

I am using the Matthew for Everyone commentary by N. T. Wright to prepare my weekly sermons. I am following the Revised Common Lectionary for text selection. The text for this week is from Matthew 25:31-46. Wright has an interesting way of dealing with this text. The usual way of reading this text is to…

Sometimes I think that Christians use words deliberately intended to confuse people who don’t already speak their lingo. I went to a Halloween party at a local church which had a puppet show. There were a lot of non-Christians there but the puppets kept quoting scripture in a series of passages which meant very little…

I really respect people who can memorize. I can’t. I have very poor memorization skills. Because I am so back at memorization, I have some tricks that the EG materials don’t list. My best memory trick is to write out the verse on a whiteboard. I then erase words and practice saying the verse. I…

Who Am I? I am a pastor of a small church in the upper midwest USA. We have a group of ladies that went through the Experiencing God materials this past summer and asked me to teach it at our Wednesday Night Prayer/Bible Study Meetings. Thus, I am facilitating a group of about sixteen people…

One of the issues that this passage raises for me is that of timing. Is this describing the events of the Second Coming of Christ, which is yet future from us now, or is this describing the events of 70 A. D.? Apocalyptic language is much slippier than we often realize. We tend to read…

Finding the historical center This passage causes me much difficulty when I try to find its historical center. By that I mean, Jesus referring to something future from Him, but is it past, present or future to us? If it is describing something in the past, then there are lessons to learn from this, but…

Matt 25:1-13 The Ten Virgins (NASB) “Then the kingdom of heaven will be comparable to ten virgins, who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. “Five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. “For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the prudent took oil…

A group of the ladies at our church completed the book Experiencing God this past summer and had good things to say about it. I’ve started a BLOG to document my own journey through the Experiencing God materials. It’s at http://experiencinggodgroup.blogspot.com.

Jesus lays out the principles of Servant Leadership in this text. He starts with the obvious negative examples and then proceeds to tell the disciples how they should act. It appears in this text that the Pharisees set themselves up as judges over the religious conduct of Israel but they were unwilling to help those…

Matt 23:-12Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. “They tie up heavy…

Or, The Past May Really Be the Future The apocalyptic is where N. T. Wright may be hardest to follow for many readers who are not used to a more realized eschatology. What does all of that mean? When the New Testament writers are writing about the future, is that future one that is mostly…

N. T. Wright has a New Testament Bible Commentary set that is intended for laypersons but it quite suitable for pastors. This set is titled the “Everyone” series. As a preacher of the Gospel, I find coming up with sermon illustrations to be a challenge week in and week out. I spend more time thinking…

I’ve just ordered three more Wright books, “Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters : Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon“, “The Epistles of Paul to the Colossians and to Philemon: An Introduction and Commentary“, and “The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering who Jesus was and is“. Loaned out this past week Wright’s “Commentary on Romans (New Interpreter’s Bible)”…

I’m now up to page 300 in “The New Testament and the People of God” (NTPG). This is the first book in the series of 3 or 5 volumes by N. T. Wright. The second and third volumes are now out as well; “Jesus and the Victory of God” and “The Resurrection of the Son…

The best way that I have found to learn Greek is the book “Greek to Me“, by Lyle and I. K. Story. This book is great because it uses memory visualization techniques. For those of us who are visual learners, these pictures are something that we can relate to and are much easier to remember…

Christian socialists are fond of citing the Old Testament passages about the Jubilee in support of their socio-economic theories. Easton has the following definition for the Jubilee Jubilee: A joyful shout or clangour of trumpets, the name of the great semi-centennial festival of the Hebrews. It lasted for a year. During this year the land…

There is a species of socialism which has survived the fall of the Soviet Union. This form of socialism is to be found primarily in the ivory towers of academia. The mantra of the Christian socialist is that of Carl Marx, “From each according to his ability to each according to his need”. In order…

Exactly what is the nature of the two issues that Paul is referring to here in Romans 14? Eating meat is almost certainly not an issue of vegetarianism or eating meat, but rather of eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Paul is saying that since an idol is nothing in and of itself,…

Presently I am doing a very hard task. I am reading from the very first page with the intention of getting to the last page, Dr. Wright’s book, The New Testament and the People of God. This book is a lot of work. The first 144 pages of the book are prelimary to the tast.…