Nicholas Kristof is one of my favorite liberals. I would love to win one of his trips! Here's just a little bit of his good advice to world travelers: 2. Carry cash and your passport where no robber will find it. Assuming that few bandits read this column, I’ll...
Mark Ward
The Shack
The Shack has taken America by storm, and like most storms it has kicked up a good bit of controversial dust along the way. I recently reviewed it in order to get a free copy. Mackenzie Alan Phillips is the central character in The Shack. His young daughter, Missy,...
Metametametalanguage
I'm writing a blog post about a blog post about an Internet article about the use of the Internet. So here goes. Click here for Alan Jacobs' comments on this New York Magazine article. Jacobs is a bit of a Christian Neil Postman sometimes. He helps me, anyway, look at...
In the Nick of Time
Kevin Bauder of Central Seminary is always worth hearing. And this blog hears him. It's my firm desire that this blog never be what he describes in the last line of the following paragraph of this excellent, timely essay: These young [fundamentalist] leaders are aware...
ἀγάπη
I've spent much of the last two weeks trying to process and organize the usage data for ἀγάπη/ἀγαπάω (and, to a lesser extent, φιλέω) in the Greek New Testament, the Septuagint, Josephus, and even the Apostolic Fathers. BibleWorks and Logos were essential tools for...
The Truth about Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons
Westminster Theological Seminary has put together a response to Dan Brown's book—now Ron Howard's movie—Angels and Demons. Check it out.
The Good Samaritan and ἀγάπη
A little tip for word study in the Bible: Don't think that you have exhausted the topic of "love" when you have looked up and studied every passage in which "love" appears—or even every passage in which forms of ἀγαπάω or φιλέω appear. No one word, Greek or English,...
For Truly Dedicated Readers
My blog is now available for the Kindle. I do truly enjoy my Kindle. It has been for me a real gift from the Father of Lights.
Stanley Fish Channels Van Til
Stanley Fish has a larger share of common grace than most people. For all his dark glasses, he sees many things clearly, and I always enjoy reading him. This must-read article made me feel truly sad—and not in a condescending way at all—for the hundreds of thousands...
Love and Hate; ἀγαπάω and μισέω
If hate is the opposite of love, as many passages indicate, then why don't we have a book called The Four Hates? Why don't preachers fulminate against the scary hate of a mother for her crying infant (ἀστοργέω [a + storge]), the emotional hate of one's ex-best-friend...