Monthly Archives: January 2016

The Sovereignty of God and the Sears Catalog

On Genesis 17

Some years ago, Dennis came to my office to talk about how his study of the Bible had reshaped his understanding of God.  He related an episode in his life just a few years earlier involving the purchase of a swing set for his young daughter.  His church background had emphasized the sovereignty of God, including the notion that God’s

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“Outside Agitators”

In the previous entry in this blog, I argued that the most profitable approach to reading prophetic literature involves a variety of “pattern recognition.”  Yesterday, the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, I took the opportunity to re-read Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” his famed “I Have a Dream” speech, and the concluding chapter of his

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“Fallen, Fallen is Babylon” (Isa 21:9)

 The Danger of Genre Confusion

During the initial days of the First Gulf War, several local news outlets contacted me wanting to know whether events in the Persian Gulf were fulfilling biblical prophecies against Babylon. I am sure that they expected the Baptist Old Testament professor at the local college to detail an apocalyptic panorama for them.  Instead, I told them, simply,

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The Letter Kills; the Spirit Gives Life

The early church affirmed the canonical authority of the Old Testament over the objections raised by some (Marcion, for example) that its focus on covenant-keeping (works legalism) and its portrayal of an “angry,” “violent” God do not comport with the Gospel’s message of grace and love. Nonetheless, the history of the church’s relationship

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