Theological Ruminations
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I’ve been blogging with Google’s Blogger for several months and have enjoyed it. It’s a great tool, and the new Blogger has added several helpful new features. But having used WordPress for the last couple of months at work, I was compelled to make the switch. Since WordPress is open source and has hundreds if not thousands of free plugins, it is a much more customizable tool and has many advantages to Blogger. Theological Ruminations is now officially closed. Please remove it from your blogroll, check out my new site, and subscribe to my new feed if you care to continue to hear what ... [read more]
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I'm getting downright tired of the junk on the web. I've been frequenting hundreds of blogs and news sites each week at work to find helpful material for our new PastorResources Blog. I've been disgusted with all the stuff you see on major news sites--obscene immodesty and sometimes even complete nudity (apparently the standard of what's acceptable is lower in the UK). Amazingly, even some Christian news sites and blogs have this kind of ????????. That really burns me up, but I digress.Well, I've found another good use for the Web Developer add-on for Firefox. I hit five key strokes, and al... [read more]
add to discussionI just found out that Don Garlington's commentary on Galatians is available as a free PDF from The Paul Page. It appears to be his contribution to the forthcoming volume 11 of the revised EBC rather than his 2002 Galatians commentary (reprinted again in 2004), since it has citations from sources in 2006. I'm not positive on this, but it seems fairly likely. Regardless of which one it is, it's worth downloading for future reference. For those who aren't aware: Garlington supports the essence of the new perspective.Update: The Paul Page is rather sporadic. It took me numerous attempts before ... [read more]
add to discussionI love this selection from Westerholm's Perspectives Old and New on Paul.To this point I have discussed Paul's usage of the dikaio- terminology with scarcely a reference to "the covenant." So astonishing an omission can only be accounted for by a narrow preoccupation with the Pauline texts, which never link the vocabulary of "righteousness" with mention of "the" (or even a) covenant, and a consequent neglect of recent Pauline scholarship, which connects the two constantly. The oversight must now be redressed (286-87).It's no wonder that Barclay, Thielman, Gathercole, and Schreiner all comme... [read more]
add to discussionWe heard a powerful testimony last night of how God has graciously given cancer to a man in our church who was in rebellion against God and estranged from his wife. With the news of his impending death, God also granted him a renewed heart of repentance. It was sweet to hear his present tenderness to the Lord set in contrast to his past hardness and impenitence. Of course hearing news like that brings mixed emotions: both joy and sorrow. But the joy far outweighs the sorrow. If God had left the man in his sin, but not given him cancer, he may have perished eternally. How gracious of God to ... [read more]
add to discussion"Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more."Someone recently asked me about this passage--specifically whether it condones the consumption of alcohol as a remedy for depression. I spent a few hours last Sunday afternoon compiling some information. The document (Word, PDF w. links, small PDF w.o. links) doesn't contain my conclusions yet. I had to set it aside for the time being. (My dissertation continues to call!) But it does have a lot of helpful discussion from a number of... [read more]
add to discussionThey exclaim that it is impossible to tolerate the vice which everywhere stalks abroad like a pestilence. What if the apostle’s sentiment applies here also? Among the Corinthians it was not a few that erred, but almost the whole body had become tainted; there was not one species of sin merely, but a multitude, and those not trivial errors, but some of them execrable crimes. There was not only corruption in manners, but also in doctrine. What course was taken by the holy apostle, in other words, by the organ of the heavenly Spirit, by whose testimony the Church stands and falls? Does he seek... [read more]
add to discussionShanna and I watched One Night with the King last night and were incredibly (!) disappointed. We had just finished reading Esther in our Bible reading, so the story was fresh on our minds. We were expecting the movie to tell faithfully the story of Esther. Not so. Probably only 25% of the movie corresponds to the biblical account. I'm not talking about just filling in the details. I'm talking about totally scrapping the biblical story, picking up a handful of those scraps, and then putting them back together in such a way that they are virtually unrecognizable. Well, maybe that's a little o... [read more]
add to discussionJude 4 in the KJV reads, "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." According to this translation of ?? ????? ?????????????? ??? ????? ?? ?????, Jude 4 seems to support some form of the doctrine of reprobation. Most Reformed theologians of the past and many of the present have made used it in support of the doctrine (e.g., Calvin; Brakel, 1:120; C. Hodge, 2:346; A. Hodge, 222; Dabney, 273; Shedd, 336; Grudem, 685).... [read more]
add to discussionI just came across this really cool website that allows you to read and compare many of the extent manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Someone has obviously spent a lot of time building this (understatement!). Check out the guide for more information on how to use it, and then try it out yourself.
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