How Then Should We Live: Models of Christian Engagement of Culture

How should a Christian live his or her life in this world? We rightly assume that our Christian faith is not merely abstract belief. Our faith means something. It has consequences. It weighs upon and informs our decisions, our relationships, and our values. Or at least it should. After we have found the answer to …

Hebrews and the Question of God’s Existence

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:3, NIV "Does God exist?" This is the second question of importance that a person can think to ask. It is second not because it is a secondary question …

political theology

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. We are in the busy season at the college as classes are wrapping up for the semester. It's taking pretty much all the mental energy I have to get papers graded and complete other end-of-semester activities. I'll be back to posting more regularly soon. But in the meantime, …

sex talk

This past Sunday at Christ's Church of Oronogo, I got to teach part of a class to parents of teenagers on the topic of sex. I always feel a little weird speaking at things like this - not because I'm embarrassed about the topic or afraid of discussing controversial issues - but because I don't …

affirmations and questions about social justice

I've had many conversations in the last few weeks about "social justice." Some of these conversations were brought about by the recent Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. There are things I liked about the statement. There are things I didn't like. I generally wonder about the purpose or effectiveness of such statements. I've …

are those your niblings or are they your siblings from your piblings?

As far as biblical words go, ἄνθρωπος (anthropos) was never a particularly controversial one. It is a rather generic word that appears almost 550 times in the Greek New Testament. This word has given us notable English words like "anthropology" and "anthropomorphic," but it never really gave us much drama or intrigue until 2011. It's …

i’m totally judging you for using that verse wrong

I've never been on Christian Mingle. I can't imagine a scenario where I ever will be on Christian Mingle. But I like to imagine that one of the questions that they ask as you are filling out your profile is "What is your life verse?" It might be trouble to match up an Ephesians 5:22 …