“What would be the impact if, for twelve years, the children saw dad with his face in his hands praying during the prelude to worship? What would be the impact if they saw mom and dad beaming with joy in singing the praises of God? Just think of it.”   Robert from Columbia, South Carolina... Continue Reading

“There are vast differences in the situations of individual clergy, from those serving small rural or urban churches who often work for low wages without benefits to the high-end salaries of some prominent megachurch pastors. Catholic priests are by far on the low end of the scale, earning about half as much as other clergy.”... Continue Reading

“So what do victim impact statements and the concept of hate crime have in common? They both point to an evaluation of the moral significance of criminal acts, and of victimhood, that prioritizes the psychological and the subjective.”   One of the great problems in today’s world is that hate is rather limited in scope.... Continue Reading

For Paul, gay and lesbian sexual acts are “contrary to nature” — literally “against nature.” At its heart, sex misuse is the toxic runoff of idolatry, but the manifest wrongness of the act is in leading its actors to use gender for anti-natural sex acts. Such abuse of creation is nothing short of rebellion against... Continue Reading

“If lost people don’t like your message because they’re hostile to the gospel, you’re in good company. But if you’re boring the people of God with the Word of God, something has gone seriously awry.”   The devil is a preacher. From the third chapter of the Bible onward, he is opening up God’s word... Continue Reading

“(1) there was a core canon from a very early time, (2) there was dispute about some of the smaller books that took some time to resolve, (3) Christians continued to find some non-canonical books to be orthodox and helpful, though not Scripture, and (4) some books were so theologically off the mark that they... Continue Reading

Doxologies punctuate the Bible because they punctuate the life of faith. This at least was Paul’s understanding of the life of Abraham: “he was strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Rom. 4:20).   Let me invite you to take a simple word-association test. The usual procedure for such a test is that the administrator... Continue Reading

The author, Peter T. O’Brien, was presented with the findings and provided the following response: “In the New Testament commentaries that I have written, although I have never deliberately misused the work of others, nevertheless I now see that my work processes at times have been faulty and have generated clear-cut, but unintentional, plagiarism. For... Continue Reading

Today’s Essenes are the gnosis-exalting hip churches and the law-exalting fundy churches, each preaching legalism of a different sort and rendering different sorts of people untouchable. They advocate withdrawal from either “church people” or “the world,” as if true kingdom enlightenment exists in an ecclesiological utopia hermetically sealed off and protected by either their cultural... Continue Reading

“These days, as I get older and consider marriage and my future, it’s the God-designed preciousness of sex that I think about more often. Sex, I’ve learned from my parents, is something to be esteemed without being glorified. While portrayed as a cheap commodity in culture today, God created it as a valuable gift.”  ... Continue Reading