The views expressed by posters and commentators are not necessarily endorsed by Living Hope International Ministries. Feel free to disagree with us as we all work together to discover the truth of Scripture.
In April of this year, 2008, Veritas Forum brought N.T. Wright to Emory University. His talk was titled, Why Does Jesus’ Resurrection Matter? Considering Its Relevance for Today. If you would like to watch or listen to these two lectures click on the appropriate links below or go to the Veritas website to get them.
I found the following statement so amazing that I typed it out so those of you who don’t have the time to listen to this can rejoice with me over this remarkable truth.
I just came across this incredible resource for learning New Testament Greek. The site features an animated guy who teaches Greek using a pretty fancy interactive web interface. I’m not sure how good it is from the perspective of someone who has never had exposure to Greek, but it looks like it starts from the very basics and go right through all of the grammar and vocabulary basics.
I would also like to mention that Karl has done a basic Greek course and it is available online as well. The advantage of Karl’s is that he uses modern pronunciation which may be helpful if you decide to transition to modern Greek later on (or if you just want to impress the waitress at the diner).
Over at Jesus Creed, Scott McKnight has a series of posts, 17, about the uses of “wrath” in the New Testament. You can peruse through his theology category to pick them all out. Basically, his conclusions fall in line with what we understand about Apocalypticism in the first century. And as I’ve read more and more about the history and the religious groups that form Judaism at that time I have one large question looming in my mind. But I have to start somewhere.
McKnight goes through each NT text that contains the word wrath, and analyzes it to see if it is talking about either a historical wrath, or an eternal/evangelistic wrath as is commonly presented in Gospel evangelizations (i.e. the Way of the Master). Ultimately, he finds a variety of texts that support both ideas, which is, of course, to be expected.
Many a trinitarian holds to the belief that Jesus pops up here and there back in the Old/Original Testament proving that he is God. They believe that such a view is tenable based on the fact that in certain events described in the OT, the text describes God appearing to someone and conversing with them or doing something else in person. Yet NONE of these instances does the text ever say that the being described as God is Jesus or is “God the Son”, or any “person” of a tri-personal Godhead.
Many people suggest that Jesus’ cry of “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” was the point where the Father could not be with his son because he had become the offering for sin for the world and God can’t be near that. Though the reasoning sounds nice, it is not the case. As this video shows beautifully, Jesus was quoting the first line of Psalm 22, a Psalm which speaks a great deal about the events of Jesus’ last hours. When one follows the text however, we shift from a man who is distraught and weary to one whose hope and faith are in the LORD. Click here to read Psalm 22. That is exactly what was on the mind of the Messiah on the cross - not the current situation he was in - but the end of the story.
This was the sermon I delivered last week in manuscript form. We began a series on spiritual discipline and this is the opening sermon in that series.
God Bless
So, about a week ago, I was sitting on a beach next to my wife and my parents. Beaches are wonderful, aren’t they? To sit there and feel the air, the sound of the waves and the sun beating down on you is almost surreal. You know what I’m talking about, that feeling that almost takes your breath away with its grandeur. By far, though, the most impressive thing is to look out on the horizon. It feels like the ocean is never ending, that this could wholly consume you, yet at the same time it is terrifying in all of its attributes.
On May 24th and 25th of 2008, Michael Bugg and Matthew Janzen debated the question Is Yeshua the One God of Israel?. The debate occurred over two nights. The first night was at Michael Bugg’s church (he is a messianic Jew who holds to a modified version of the Trinity). The second night of the debate was held at Matthew Janzen’s church (he is the biblical unitarian).
Sometimes questions by their very nature can contain assumptions. For example, if someone asked, “Have you stopped beating your dog yet?” how would one answer this question? Either way the question is answered, the assumption is that the person is guilty of the action. This form of questioning can be tricky when the assumption of the questioner is not easily detectable. For example, consider this excerpt from the famous British Christian author, C. S. Lewis:
Discussion of Thomas’ words in John 20:28 has been a hot discussion topic of late here on kingdomready. So I thought it was fitting AND timely when I ran across an excellent article on the same subject by Ivan Maddox of West End Bible Fellowship in Atlanta Georgia. Ivan’s full article is rather long, so I thought I would post a couple of interesting latter segments of it and provide a link to the full piece (Did Thomas Claim that Jesus is God?) for those who wish to read the entire paper (which I would heartily recommend).
Last night, I watched this sermon by Shane Claiborne of the Simple Way, an intentional community in the “bad lands” of north Philadelphia. He shares his incredible story of how God has led him throughout his life to learn what it means to take Jesus’ words seriously and really follow him. He was born in east Tennessee and was raised as a Methodist. He went to a “get saved” meeting each year and got born again, again and again. Then he went to Eastern in Pennsylvania and found himself reading an article about homeless people who were being evicted from an abandoned Catholic church. He and 100 others got involved by moving into the church with the homeless and suffering with them while sharing the love of Messiah. I won’t give too much away, because it is a beautiful story. He also interned with Mother Theresa in Calcutta and has done some incredible things in Philadelphia since then.
I just came across this incredible resource for learning New Testament Greek. The site features an animated guy who teaches Greek using a pretty fancy interactive web interface. I’m not sure how good it is from the perspective of someone who has never had exposure to Greek, but it looks like it starts from the very basics and go right through all of the grammar and vocabulary basics.
Many a trinitarian holds to the belief that Jesus pops up here and there back in the Old/Original Testament proving that he is God. They believe that such a view is tenable based on the fact that in certain events described in the OT, the text describes God appearing to someone and conversing with them or doing something else in person. Yet NONE of these instances does the text ever say that the being described as God is Jesus or is “God the Son”, or any “person” of a tri-personal Godhead.
Sometimes questions by their very nature can contain assumptions. For example, if someone asked, “Have you stopped beating your dog yet?” how would one answer this question? Either way the question is answered, the assumption is that the person is guilty of the action. This form of questioning can be tricky when the assumption of the questioner is not easily detectable. For example, consider this excerpt from the famous British Christian author, C. S. Lewis:
Last night, I watched this sermon by Shane Claiborne of