There are intimations in the Bible, and speculation in sermons I’ve heard, about what our resurrected physical bodies may be like and how they may differ from our present bodies — but how about our resurrected psyches? Surely they, too, must change. You don’t have to be a total-depravity Calvinist to recognize that every person’s … [Read more…]
I first read about this book nearly nine years ago, in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the John Templeton Foundation: In the 1960s and 70s, while the atheistic straitjacket of logical positivism was loosening, smart, young Christian philosophers like Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff began crafting new ways of defending Christian … [Read more…]
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 (“hallowed”=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…]