Category Archives: Promotionals

Apologetics, Interviews, New Testament Theology, Promotionals, Theology

Midlands Bible College Interviews Dr. Darrell Bock

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I would like to point everyone to a very interesting and informative interview with Dr. Darrell Bock that was recently conducted by Midlands Bible College. He discusses a variety of topics and it is very enjoyable to read. Here is an excerpt:

A short while ago, you wrote widely on matters relating to the DaVinci Code. Is this subject something that you intend to keep at the top of your agenda?

Well, not the DaVinci Code, but I do plan to keep writing in areas where the culture interacts with the Jesus and the Bible. There are so many crazy ideas out there. I distinguish between Christianity, where Jesus is unique and Messiah versus Jesusanity, where Jesus is just a great religious teacher but he is not Messiah nor unique. I will continue to write about the difference and the issues tied to that discussion.

What impact, long-term, do you think the DaVinci Code and similar works will have on the general public perception of the historical Jesus? In other words, do you think the negative effect of these works will be short lived?

It actually is that the DaVinci Code reflects issues that have been in the public square and now, popularized, reflect how many people are coming to see Christianity as a political creation of Constantine that has little, if anything, to do with the historical Jesus. Now Constantine did have a tremendous impact on Christianity, but the theology of the church long predates him as does the church’s view of Jesus, as that is rooted in the experience of the disciples and Jesus’ own teaching. But fighting the impression made by this other story that now shows up in novels and TV specials on Jesus and Christianity is going to be an ongoing task for the church—and many in the church have no idea how to respond to such claims. They sense these alternative ideas are wrong but do not know what to say when “experts” or books say otherwise. Thus the church needs to do a better job of instructing its own on such idea.

For Christians who want to know more about this, there any other books or resources that he would recommend?

There are dozens of books in the DaVinci Code. However there are very few on the early history of Christianity that deal with these issues. Among those that exist are my The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth behind Alternative Christianities; Craig Evans’ Fabricating Jesus; Dan Wallace and two others have Reinventing Jesus. My blog at www.bible.org/bock also discusses these issues now and again. (Read More…)

Apologetics, Biblical Theology, Creation, Eschatology, Interviews, New Testament Theology, Pop Christianity, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

Bishop bucks views of heaven: NT Wright Interview at Tennessean.com

N.T. Wright’s recent visit to Nashville, TN, included an interview with the Tennessean. It includes some very interesting comments regarding hell and the final state of those who reject God’s Glory and Gospel. While I do not share his views on hell in full, I would say that his heart to see the world renewed is a blessed hope and central teaching of the Bible that we should all think about regularly and share with our family and friends. Below I have reproduced the article found here:

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Bishop bucks views of heaven

Long-held notions not biblical, he says

By BOB SMIETANA
Staff Writer

Heaven is not retirement on steroids, where people sit around doing whatever they like, with nothing but time on their hands.

Instead it’s more like going on vacation. You rest, relax, stop and smell the roses, and then get back to work. At least, that’s what the Bible says.

“The book of Revelation talks about God making us kings and priests,” said N.T. Wright, bishop of Durham, England, and author of Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. “It isn’t just salvation and now you can sit back and relax. It’s that we are saved to be God’s agents and stewards in this new creation.”

Wright who was in Nashville on Tuesday speaking at West End United Methodist Church, believes the notion of going to heaven after death isn’t found in the Bible. Instead, he says, God brings heaven to earth.

“It’s like this world with all the beauty and the grandeur and the power,” he said, “but unfettered by death and decay.”

The Church of England bishop says that he isn’t trying to come up with a new or inventive view of heaven and resurrection. Instead, he is trying to point people to the Bible.

“The odd thing is that I don’t think I am saying anything remotely unorthodox,” he said. “I am trying to give people back some bits of the Bible they have forgotten about … Resurrection may be crazy, but it is what Christians are supposed to believe.”

That’s a notion that appeals to Scotty Smith, founding pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin. Smith is currently preaching a series on heaven based on the book of Revelation.

He says that evangelical Christians, in particular, have replaced a biblical view of heaven with a romanticized view.

“It (heaven) is going to look a little more like this world than a place filled with cherubs sitting around and singing Bill Gaither songs,” Smith said. “The story the Bible tells is one of redemption, not replacement.”

Resurrection is the focus

Wright, appointed bishop of Durham, a diocese south of Scotland, in 2003, says the Bible and the Christian creeds speak more about resurrection than about going to heaven.

“Without resurrection you are left with a theology which says that the present world of space, time and matter is just junk, and God is going to throw it in the trash,” he said. “If you say this world is basically junk and trash, you can exploit it, you can exploit people. You can abuse the world, and you can abuse people and it really doesn’t matter.”

This focus on resurrection and not just getting to heaven also appeals to Gavin Richardson, director of youth ministries at Faith United Methodist Church in Hendersonville.

“It’s not just ‘get Jesus and you are good to go’,” he said.

In all his talk of heaven, Wright still believes in the reality of hell. He says that, in the end, people are free to choose to be separated from God.

“The Bible doesn’t talk about heaven and hell side by side. The Bible talks about God bringing all things on heaven and earth together. Heaven and earth will be joined. That is the great renewal and God’s victory over evil and suffering and death,” he said. “At the same time, the Bible talks about the certainty of final loss for those who choose not to worship the God in whose image they were made. And it seems to me that the New Testament doesn’t leave us with the option of saying all will be saved. I often wish it did, but it doesn’t.”

Books, Hebrew, Languages, OT Hebrew, Promotionals

A Reader’s Hebrew Bible

This is really good news! Zondervan has published A Reader’s Hebrew Bible, similar to their Reader’s Greek Bible. I just finished my three semesters of Hebrew at Reformed Theological Seminary and I’m so happy that they have come out with this so that I can bring it with me to Church and keep up my Hebrew skills as the years go by. Here is the information about it:

Ideal for Hebrew students and pastors, A Reader’s Hebrew Bible saves time and effort in studying the Hebrew Old Testament. By eliminating the need to look up definitions, the footnotes allow the user to read the Hebrew and Aramaic text more quickly, focusing on parsing and grammatical issues. A Reader’s Hebrew Bible offers the following features:

  • Complete text of the Hebrew and Aramaic Bible using the Leningrad Codex (minus critical apparatus)
  • Shaded Hebrew names that occur less than 100 times
  • Footnoted definitions of all Hebrew words occurring 100 times or less (twenty-five or less for Aramaic words)
  • Context-specific glosses
  • Stem-specific glossed definitions for verb forms (Qal, Piel, Hiphil, and so forth)
  • Ketib/Qere readings both noted in the text and differentiated appropriately
  • Marker ribbon

Featuring a handsome Italian Duo-Tone™ binding, A Reader’s Hebrew Bible is a practical, attractive, and surprisingly affordable resource.

Page Count: 1680

Size: 7.2 wide x 9.9 high x 2.1 deep in. | 183 wide x 251 high x deep 53 mm
Weight: 3.26 lb | 1477 gms

Available: March, 2008
Publisher: Zondervan

I hope to get one soon and I encourage anyone who is learning Hebrew to purchase one of these and bring it with them to Church on a regular basis when your pastor is preaching out of the Old Testament.

In Christ and In Defense of the Faith,

Apologetics, Church Year, Creation, Eschatology, New Testament Theology, Pop Christianity, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

Resurrection! That is our hope!

Well, since I wasn’t able to post on Easter Sunday, I figured I would at least post about the resurrection sometime this week. So here goes!

This article is from Christianity Today. I encourage you to read more than just the excerpt. 🙂 Enjoy!

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The bodily resurrection is the good news of the gospel—and thus our social and political mandate.
by N. T. Wright – posted 3/24/2008

There is no agreement in the church today about what happens to people when they die. Yet the New Testament is crystal clear on the matter: In a classic passage, Paul speaks of “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23). There is no room for doubt as to what he means: God’s people are promised a new type of bodily existence, the fulfillment and redemption of our present bodily life. The rest of the early Christian writings, where they address the subject, are completely in tune with this.

The traditional picture of people going to either heaven or hell as a one-stage, postmortem journey represents a serious distortion and diminution of the Christian hope. Bodily resurrection is not just one odd bit of that hope. It is the element that gives shape and meaning to the rest of the story of God’s ultimate purposes. If we squeeze it to the margins, as many have done by implication, or indeed, if we leave it out altogether, as some have done quite explicitly, we don’t just lose an extra feature, like buying a car that happens not to have electrically operated mirrors. We lose the central engine, which drives it and gives every other component its reason for working.

When we talk with biblical precision about the resurrection, we discover an excellent foundation for lively and creative Christian work in the present world—not, as some suppose, for an escapist or quietist piety.
Bodily Resurrection

While both Greco-Roman paganism and Second Temple Judaism held a wide variety of beliefs about life beyond death, the early Christians, beginning with Paul, were remarkably unanimous on the topic.

When Paul speaks in Philippians 3 of being “citizens of heaven,” he doesn’t mean that we shall retire there when we have finished our work here. He says in the next line that Jesus will come from heaven in order to transform the present humble body into a glorious body like his own. Jesus will do this by the power through which he makes all things subject to himself. This little statement contains in a nutshell more or less all Paul’s thought on the subject. The risen Jesus is both the model for the Christian’s future body and the means by which it comes.

Similarly, in Colossians 3:1–4, Paul says that when the Messiah (the one “who is your life”) appears, then you too will appear with him in glory. Paul does not say “one day you will go to be with him.” No, you already possess life in him. This new life, which the Christian possesses secretly, invisible to the world, will burst forth into full bodily reality and visibility.

The clearest and strongest passage is Romans 8:9–11. If the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus the Messiah, dwells in you, says Paul, then the one who raised the Messiah from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies as well, through his Spirit who dwells in you. God will give life, not to a disembodied spirit, not to what many people have thought of as a spiritual body in the sense of a nonphysical one, but “to your mortal bodies also.”

Other New Testament writers support this view. The first letter of John declares that when Jesus appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. The resurrection body of Jesus, which at the moment is almost unimaginable to us in its glory and power, will be the model for our own. And of course within John’s gospel, despite the puzzlement of those who want to read the book in a very different way, we have some of the clearest statements of future bodily resurrection. Jesus reaffirms the widespread Jewish expectation of resurrection in the last day, and announces that the hour for this has already arrived. It is quite explicit: “The hour is coming,” he says, “indeed, it is already here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man, and those who hear will live; when all in the graves will come out, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”

(more… )

Apologetics, Church Year, Eschatology, History, Interviews, New Testament - Gospels, New Testament Theology, Promotionals, Theology

Holy Saturday: Anticipating the Resurrection

In honor of Holy Saturday, here is a good interview with N.T. Wright regarding the resurrection of Jesus.

Below is an excerpt…

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At the National Pastors Conference in San Diego, PreachingToday.com’s Brian Lowery got to interview N. T. Wright about his latest book—Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church—and how it relates to preaching. Since we are all in the midst of the Easter journey, his words are timely, challenging, and above all else, hopeful.

Preaching Today: In your book Surprised by Hope, you talk about a deeper understanding of hope “that provides a coherent and energizing basis for work in today’s world.” How has that deeper understanding influenced your preaching through the years?

Bishop N. T. Wright: [Studying] the Resurrection for an earlier book, Resurrection of the Son of God … ended up rubbing my nose in the New Testament theology of new creation, and the fact that the new creation has begun with Easter. I discovered that when we do new creation—when we encourage one another in the church to be active in projects of new creation, of healing, of hope for communities—we are standing on the ground that Jesus has won in his resurrection.

New creation is not just “whistling in the dark.” It’s not a kind of social Pelagianism, where we try to improve things by pulling ourselves up from our own bootstraps. Because Jesus is raised from the dead, God’s new world has begun. We are not only the beneficiaries of new creation; we are the agents of it. I just can’t stop preaching about that, because that is where we’re going with Easter.

For me, therefore, there’s no disjunction between preaching about the salvation which is ours in God’s new age—the new heavens and new earth—and preaching about what that means for the present. The two go very closely together. If you have an eschatology that is nonmaterial, why bother with this present world? But if God intends to renew the world, then what we do in the present matters. That’s 1 Corinthians 15:58! This understanding has made my preaching more challenging to me, and hopefully to my hearers, to actually get off our backsides and do something in the local community—things that are signs of new creation. (more…)

Anglicanism, Current Events, Denominations, Ecclesiology, History, Promotionals, Reforming, Theology

The Global South Anglican: its origins and development

Here is a very helpful article for those of you interested in the conservative and orthodox churches of the Global South that exist withing the World Wide Anglican Communion. Peter Toon has a good summary that is well worth your reading. Please pray for the Anglican denomination, as it is going through a crisis that seems to be leading towards its ultimate demise and death for those we desire to maintain the unity of the Church in the bond of sexual immorality and abominable practices.

Here is a portion from Toon’s blog entry:

Though the expression, “Global South,” has been in use for a decade or more in the spheres of international relations, global economics, third-world development, and the like, its use in Anglican ecclesiological discourse is very recent. To refer to “The Global South” as one of the various constituencies of the Global Anglican Communion of Churches is now common; but; it has only been so for four or five years. (see the essay by Dr Poon listed at end of this article.)

Further, the economic and political use of the expression refers solely to the poorer countries of the world, the so-called developing nations, situated south of Europe and the U.S.A. (see for details of all this the work of “The Center for Global South” at American University in Washington D.C. founded in 1992); but, the Anglican use strangely includes both the provinces that are in developing countries and one or two that are in developed countries (e.g., S E Asia).

Today, 2008, the constituency called the Anglican Global South is generally associated with both a conservative theology and also opposition to the liberal-progressive agenda in sexuality of provinces in the West, especially North America. This has not always been so, for the original stance of this grouping was a continuation of the former South-South Encounters of representatives of Anglican Provinces not in the West or the North. As such it had admirable aims and sought primarily to do justice to the vocation and experience of being Anglican outside of the West and North and after colonialism. This explains why the relatively affluent province of S E Asia is in The Global South.

Totally separate from the work at, and between, the South to South Encounters, and beginning before the Lambeth Conference of 1998, continuing during that Lambeth Conference, and then more intensely afterwards, has been the persistent work of various American “ambassadors.” They have both made visits to Africa and Asia, and also invited to the U.S.A. bishops from these continents. The aim was to enlist these overseas bishops as orthodox allies in the battle being fought in and around The Episcopal Church over the innovations in sexual practice and ethics.