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Karl, recently emailed me a link to this lecture on the first chapter of Genesis. The talk is titled “Why God Didn’t Call the Light ‘Light.’” Dr. John Walton, professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, spoke at Blackhawk Church back in 2005 about how important it is to be aware of the cultural setting of the Bible. In particular, he focused on how we should interpret the first chapter of Genesis functionally rather than ontologically. In other words, rather than thinking about what God made we should understand this chapter in reference to the functions God gave these various systems: time, weather, food cycle, etc. Not only will this teaching make you think, it will make you aware of your own cultural bias and learn how to read the Bible more effectively.

Our faith is under attack. Though many of us are not on the front lines, we all have the responsibility to be ready to make a defense to anyone who asks us to give an account for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3.15). Sadly, in most churches we do not do well preparing and teaching our people the reasons why we believe what we believe. For example, why do we believe that there is a God? How do we know the Bible has been reliably transmitted? How can we be so sure that Jesus really was raised from the dead? These questions and many more are increasingly being asked, especially of those in college. What makes matters worse is that the anti-Christians, be they professors or fellow students, are often much better prepared to defend their position than we are. Does Christianity require a leap of faith regardless of the facts? What right do we have to say other faiths are in error if we cannot explain why our own is true? Questions like these have driven me to regularly expose myself to the field of apologetics (not apologizing, but defending or giving reasons for the faith). In this blog post I have collected together a number of resources that may help you give an answer to those attacking our faith.

On a recent Dividing Line program Dr. James White the foremost Reformed debater of our day criticized Anthony Buzzard and Servetus the Evangelical for their non-trinitarian beliefs. The clip is about 15 minutes long. It gives a window into how we are perceived by the wider evangelical world.

click here to listen

To read Servetus’ response, click here and then find the link titled, “James White Continues to Speak Foolishly.” I wonder if these two will have an opportunity to publicly debate. I don’t think Dr. White has debated a biblical unitarian before.

I recently received a link to a video (see it here) in which a “Reverend” spouted off about how evil President Obama is, and saying that “white folks are going to rise up” the way black folks did in reaction to the Rodney King incident - and this was from a black minister. Moreover, this man practically foamed at the mouth with his hatred for Obama, repeatedly calling him a “long-legged Mac-daddy” (whatever that means) and worse. No matter what you may think of the president’s politics and policies, we are told to honor and pray for our governmental leaders, not spout off such strife-gendering rhetoric.

All of the following presentations may be downloaded for free. Enjoy!

Sunday, April 26
7:00pm Welcome audio
7:30pm Anthony Buzzard: “Intense Reflections on the Bible in 2009” audio | paper

Monday, April 27

9:00 Joe Martin: “I Thought You Would Call Me Father” audio | paper

10:00 Break

10:30 Juan Baixeras: “Proving the Resurrection” audio | paper

11:30 Lunch and free time

1:30 Dustin Smith: “Christos, Caesar, Vindication, and Ethics: A Fresh Reading of Phil. 2:5-11 in Light of Recent Research” audio | paper

2:30 Break

3:00 Robin Todd: Sermon and Song audio | paper may come

4:00 Faith Stories

5:30 Evening meal

7:00 Dave Hixon: “An Overview of the Seals of Revelation” audio | paper

thoughts?

We have recently added some new resources to our Death-is-Sleep page. Previously we had three sections: (1) Audio (2) Articles (3) Videos. Now we have five sections. This was done by taking some of the articles out that were really books and putting them with a couple of new ones into a new section called “Online Books.” Then, we added another new section called “Books for Purchase,” which links mostly to Amazon.com for those who want to follow up with further reading. So now our page has the following sections:

1. Free Online Audio
2. Free Online Videos
3. Free Online Articles
4. Free Online Books
5. Books for Purchase

I’ve been reading Dr. Lee Camp’s book Mere Discipleship (a name which plays off the famous work by C.S. Lewis–Mere Christianity). While I’ve been working through it, I have been impressed by how much the kingdom features as a foundational doctrine when it comes to discipleship. So, I’ve been looking around online to see what else is out there and found a three part audio series that he delivered concerning his book. The second of these three lectures focused entirely on the kingdom of God. From listening to it, it sure sounds like he also believes in the sleep of the dead. He really presses his audience to jettison the heaven-at-death mythology and instead place their hope in the resurrection at the coming of Jesus.

A thorough consideration and refutation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Originally released as 12 tapes but now available on mp3, this series examines the doctrine of the Trinity proposition by proposition. Not only is this series approached from a biblical perspective, Don Snedeker also taps into the rich biblical unitarian resources of several authors from the 19th century. Furthermore, Don works through a number of texts typically used to support the Trinity and he demonstrates their true meaning based on their context. Click on the audio icon above to see the titles for each of the 12 mp3s in this comprehensive examination.

1. Introductions A and B; Biblical Unitarianism Explained
2. Three Types of Trinitarianism; The Word “Persons”; Language of Trinitarianism Not in the Bible