I had enjoyed several of N.T. Wright’s other books, and he himself recommends this book at the end of his Simply Christian. The book was originally published in 1999, and the 2015 edition (by InterVarsity Press) has a new, seven-page introduction by Wright. The “backbone of this book,” says the author in the preface (9), … [Read more…]
This book is one of the “Long Line of Godly Men Profile” series, and its author — a prominent American minister — is also the series editor. It’s a short book (132 pages of text, plus a foreword, preface, notes, bibliography, and index), providing a brief and necessarily selective account of the life of the … [Read more…]
I think there’s a case to be made that the Lord’s Prayer has a chiastic structure: Opening (“Our Father, Who art in Heaven”) > > Glory – Kingdom – Power (“name”=glory, “kingdom”=kingdom, “will”=power) — in all places (“on Earth as it is in Heaven”) > > > > Asking for two very important things (bread … [Read more…]
This is a delightful book, and if you have the chance to read it you should. There are plenty of satisfying insights, and the book brings Paul and his travels excitingly to life. It’s a short book (155 pages), and decidedly nontechnical (no index and just a few footnotes, mostly to the relevant verses in … [Read more…]
During our church’s Easter service, a video was played that featured excerpts from (I’m almost certain) a Billy Graham sermon. One point made was that the Resurrection is the most important fact in human history, and also that it is as incontrovertible historically as just about anything else that happened in ancient Rome. Now, we … [Read more…]
Happy Easter! He is risen! Some may ask, Is it really true that someone can go to Heaven, after leading a bad life, simply by repenting and professing one’s belief in Jesus Christ at the last moment, and without ever doing a good work? We know that apparently the answer is, Yes — because it … [Read more…]
This is a clearly written and short book: 103 small pages, with lots of sidebar pages devoted to a quote or two. The author, an evangelical Christian and who died in 2015, was president of the John Templeton Foundation (founded by the author’s father); before that he was a pediatric surgeon. The foreword is by … [Read more…]
What a ridiculous title this post has! Well, yes. It’s all Scripture and it’s all worth reading, and what business does anyone have ranking the different parts of God’s Word? And even putting it in terms of, “Which four books would you want to have with you on a deserted island?” seems a bit silly: … [Read more…]
This is just a brief post noting a similarity in the basic structure of the Old and New Testaments. In the Bible we Protestants use, both testaments begin with a founding core (the Pentateuch/Torah — Gospels), followed by some subsequent history (Joshua through Esther — Acts), and then a long series of books that are … [Read more…]
Did Jesus implicitly use an argument similar to Pascal’s Wager in his parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl (Matthew 13:44-46)? Here are the parables: 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he … [Read more…]