The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg My rating: 2 of 5 stars [Please note that some of the varnish has been removed from the following opinion, and I think I got down into the wood grain.] Since people are just complicated...
Mark Ward
Introduction to the New Testament for Bibles International
I wrote the following introduction to the New Testament for Bibles International; it is being translated and placed into Bibles all around the world. The Bible tells one story, because God has one plan for all of history (Isa. 46:9–10; Gal. 4:4–6). The 27 books of the...
Introduction to the Old Testament for Bibles International
I wrote the following introduction to the Old Testament for Bibles International; it is being translated and placed into Bibles all around the world. Come back tomorrow for the intro to the New Testament. The Bible tells one story, because God has one plan for all of...
Introduction to the Bible for Bibles International
I wrote the following introduction for Bibles International; it is being translated and placed at the beginning of Bibles all around the world. Come back tomorrow and the next day for intros to the Old Testament and New Testament. The Bible tells one story. Just one....
Review: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell My rating: 4 of 5 stars Though Gladwell's interpretation of the David and Goliath story leaves a bit to be desired (he reads too much into certain narrative details and fails...
Review: By the Waters of Bablyon
Scott Aniol’s new book, By the Waters of Babylon: Worship in a Post-Christian Culture, argues at length against the architects of missional evangelism—not because Aniol thinks the attractional model (of Hybels, Warren, et al.) is better, but because he doesn’t see...
Bible Faculty Summit 2016
Last week for the third time I attended the Bible Faculty Summit. For the third time I delivered a paper. For the third time I was encouraged, edified, and fattened. This year we all went to Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown, Wisconsin. (I managed to enjoy a...
Review: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath My rating: 3 of 5 stars I purposefully let this book marinate in my mind for a week or so after I completed it before sitting down to write the review. I wanted to see what stuck. For me, it was the...
Love Does Not Equal Tolerance of Whatever You Want to Do: A Prooftext
I like it when people think clearly enough to advert to their epistemological controls, their critical foundations. I think it's a rare gift in a world in which most educated people seem to hold tightly to moral relativism and scientistic absolutism at the same time,...
Psalm 44 and the Prosperity Gospel
Prosperity preachers know just what to do with the first part of Psalm 44. They even get it kind of right: God is gracious to us and saves us and allows us to boast in him continually. But the prosperity movement doesn’t have a category for inexplicable divine...