When I was in seminary, two students, were expelled for plagiarizing entire paragraphs from several well-known theologians. To steal paragraphs from someone else and to pass them off as your own is both wrong and foolish. The sad irony is that if those same students had block-quoted the paragraph they plagiarized, their professors would have rewarded them for being amateur... Continue Reading

Then came (and went) the 20-minute sermon on the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. To introduce his sermon, the pastor played a totally un-relatable clip from the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation movie. Void of mentions of sin, transformation in Christ, and Scripture reading and full of Bible paraphrasing, this feel-good motivational talk was the... Continue Reading

John Bunyan reminds us in vivid ways in The Pilgrim’s Progress of the journey those in Christ are on. We travel through the difficulties of this world, headed ever onward toward the Celestial City. However, as Christian and his companion Hopeful found, one great obstacle to arriving there is a deep river, with no bridge to cross it... Continue Reading

Is there one candidate Christians must vote for? No. But are there Christian graces, or at least common grace virtues, that we should pray for and look for in our leaders? Absolutely. Don’t ask “who would I like to have a beer with?” or “who sticks it to the people I’m most fed up with?”... Continue Reading

None of us have any idea where we will be this time next year. Or if we’ll even still be here. We have no idea what God will bring into our lives this year. But for those of us who know Jesus we can be certain that God will fulfill his purposes for us. His... Continue Reading

Ultimately whether Jesus had long hair, short hair, was tall or really short, was muscular or very skinny, doesn’t matter. One day we will see Him face to face. We may not know what He looks like, but we are promised in this life to not only have His mind (1 Cor. 2:16) but also... Continue Reading

Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? Like all good questions, the answer is more complex than most want, but I am confident of my position: Muslims and Christians do not worship the same God, but given the complexity of the matter we all ought to stop demonizing those who disagree with us.  ... Continue Reading

The New Perspective on Paul is not as new as it used to be. It’s been around forty years or so, but it is an epochal movement in the study of Paul. It begins with the reevaluation of the Judaism contemporary to the New Testament writers. It argues that we need to understand that Judaism... Continue Reading

This is not a quick fix. In fact, it will take generations, and those best in position to change this sad state are those black students protesting the dearth of black faculty. They should make pacts with each other to continue their studies in their fields, earn terminal degrees, and come back to teach on... Continue Reading

However, taken to extremes, radicals in the first group might promote “cheap grace,” while extremests in the other camp might encourage “cooperating grace.” The first group, in their error, might present grace without any demands or compulsions. The second group might push the ideas of performance, demand, and compulsion too far.   In my own... Continue Reading