“From the end spring new beginnings,” Pliny the Elder claimed two thousand years ago. His sentiment is one that applies in many situations, not the least of which is the passing of the old year into the new. In ancient times, friends made amends with each other, debts were paid, and relationships were restored as a part of one’s new year’s resolutions. Wrongs were made right, and justice, even mercy, was acted out. I don’t know what early Christians thought about such annual rituals, but I suspect that many of them wondered why their unbelieving friends waited till the end of the year before they decided to do the right thing. Nevertheless, there was something that was good and proper about it all: new year’s resolutions brought into focus one’s relationships with others. Continue Reading »

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Most controversial theological issues of 2007:

1. Francis Beckwith’s conversion to Catholicism

2. J.P. Moreland’s paper to the Evangelical Theological Society entitled: How Evangelicals Became Over-Committed to the Bible and What can be Done about It.

Most important books of 2007:

1. UnChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons

2. Kingdom Triangle by JP Moreland

3. Christianity’s Dangerous Idea by Alister McGrath

4. Putting Jesus in His Place by Ed Komoszewski and Robert Bowman

5. They Like Jesus but Not the Church by Dan Kimball

Most Controversial Book

Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns

Top Ten Christian Blogs

1. Between Two Worlds: Theological news that keeps us all informed. Thanks Justin. Continue Reading »

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Join us as we discuss the history of interpretation through the Reformation.

 

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The most valuable lesson that I had in graduate studies was when a professor of mine had me defend Arminianism. The reason why this was so valuable centered on the fact that I was not an Arminian and the professor knew it. He set up a debate where I was assigned to research the best arguments for conditional election (the primary distinguishing mark of Arminianism) while others were to defend unconditional election (the primary distinguishing mark of Calvinism). Grading was done on how well each party defended the best elements of their assigned position.

I took this challenge very seriously and for weeks studied the arguments for Arminianism, responded to the challenges of Calvinism, and shaped my presentation in such a way that I thought contributed most persuasively in debate form. Once the assignment was complete, my professor said that I lost the debate, but every student, including those on the opposing side, conceded that I undoubtedly won. It was a bitter-sweet victory! Continue Reading »

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What is faith? This is a very basic question that oftentimes is taken for granted because of the word’s wide usage in many different context. Because of this and because of its importance in the Christian worldview I thought that I would do what I could to briefly explain some important elements of faith. More importantly, I hope to demonstrate as briefly as I can how faith has been redefined in the Church to the point that it is in danger of relegating Christianity to irrelevancy, having equal pluralistic status with all the other major belief systems in the world.

Bill O’Reilly, in an interview with Richard Dawkins this year, illustrated what our current conception of faith is today. As his belief in God was being challenged by Dawkins’ intellectual attacks, O’Reilly did not have much of an answer. After being questioned by Dawkins as to whether he believed in other gods such as Zeus, Apollo, or Thor, O’Reilly responds by saying that he is “throwing in with Jesus.” He goes on to say that he cannot prove that Christ is God, but that Christ is God to him because it helps him. His faith was relegated to the realm of societal and personal pragmatism. While Dawkins did not do too good considering the burden that he had, O’Reilly should not have been in this discussion representing the Christian worldview. In the end his faith rested on “throwing in.” In other words, his defense was not unlike Pascals’ wager where the defense becomes “While my faith may be a blind faith, as it stands right now your faith (atheism) is more blind. I will just choose the lesser of two evils.” Continue Reading »

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Here is a good video to help you understand what Dan Wallace’s ministry at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts does on their expeditions. Thanks Dan. I am glad you do what you do.

 

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A Critique of the Preterist View of Matthew 24 by Dr. Mark Hitchcock.

 

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I admit it: I’m a sap for the old B&W Hollywood movies. “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “A Christmas Carol,” and many others are my favorites to watch at this time of year. Christmas is not Christmas until I’ve seen them. My family always knew how good a movie was by how much I teared up. Then, in appropriate family style, they would all make fun of me. I’ve been known to stay up till the wee hours of the morning on Christmas eve waiting till someone else in the house stirred. I did this when I was a kid, and I did this when I became an adult. One time, I even played Monopoly with my kid sister till daybreak. After several hours of playing the game, I had to wake her up for each turn. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for that. I’m in a hiatus right now, but that’s only because our boys aren’t married and we don’t have any grandkids yet. But I’m sure the clock will revert when little Wallaces are running around.

When our boys were young, we had to think very carefully how to talk to them about Santa Claus. Continue Reading »

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In the movie National Treasure a small team of amateur archeologists and treasure-seekers stumbles across the lost books from the ancient library of Alexandria. They discover many other treasures, of course, but this is what piqued my interest the most! Unfortunately, the tale is all fiction: the ancient library of Alexandria, which was by many accounts the single largest library in the ancient world, was completely burned down more than two millennia ago. The best estimates are that 400,000 manuscripts were lost.

Just as National Treasure is a historical revisionist’s pipedream, so is the idea that Alexandria was a singular occurrence. The fact is that it’s been repeated multiple times, even in recent history. To be sure, with the invention of the printing press, copies can be exact. So even if some first editions are destroyed, there are almost always others of the same in different locations. Not so with handwritten manuscripts, however. Each is unique, and each has its own story to tell. But when these manuscripts are destroyed, stolen, dissected, worm-eaten, or otherwise damaged, the information they provide is lost. Continue Reading »

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Hermeneutics #6: Pesher, Newspaper Eschatology, and Matthew’s Use of the Old Testament

Newspaper eschatology is and has been common throughout the history of the Church. Whenever evil causes the world to become senseless, often people will interpret the Scripture through the lens of this senselessness, believing the end is at hand. Christ encourages us to look to these signs, yet these signs are hard to interpret.

Pesher is a hermeneutic used by the Qumran community in the first century. It seeks to find immediate fulfillment of prophecy in contemporary circumstances. The question is whether New Testament writers (esp. Matthew) used a Pesher hermeneutic. Liberals have no problem saying yes. Conservatives are much more hesitant. Here are the options we discuss.

1. They used it, and it was right. Therefore, we are encouraged to use Pesher today.

2. They used it, and it was wrong. God used it in spite of their bad hermeneutic.

3. They used it, and they had the right to use it because they were inspired. We cannot use Pesher because we are not inspired.

4. They did not use it. They used a christological typology.

What do you all think?

 

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Continue Reading »

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As this Christmas season approaches it is important to remember the meaning of Christmas. The incarnation of Christ can be summarized in one word – Immanuel, God with us. In a world where most seek a higher power, we celebrate a God who sought us out and sent His only Son to earth for us. For that we are eternally grateful and want to take this opportunity to express our thanks to all of you who have participated and supported this ministry. With The Theology Program being used in many local churches and being viewed on the web along with the rest of our online ministries, Reclaiming the Mind has had the privilege of serving thousands of people. Our desire continues to be faithfully teaching and challenging people with the truth of Jesus Christ and His incarnation. Continue Reading »

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I wanted to let you know that we have an exciting opportunity for you in the upcoming year. Rob Bowman will be teaching an online elective for The Theology Program on Christian Apologetics. This will be a great opportunity for you to take a course in apologetics taught by one of the most prominent apologists in Evangelical Christianity today.

The classes will be on Monday evenings from 10PM - 11:30PM EST. They begin on February 4th and then wrap up April 7th. (The fourth week’s class will be a special 3 hour session beginning at 8:30pm)

If you have a desire to learn more about what we as Christians believe and you want to better equip yourself to answer those challenging questions which unbelievers ask then this is a great chance for you to do that. Also, this would make a great Christmas gift for anyone in your life who loves apologetics or is in need of learning more about the Christian faith.

For more information and to find out how to enroll go here.

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Mark Hitchcock on why Christians suffer.

 

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We have seen in the last few weeks that scribes made all sorts of errors when copying the text of the New Testament. Last week, we discussed unintentional errors. These are spelling changes, changes due to poor eyesight, distractions, faulty hearing, poor memory (of what the scribe just read in the text he was copying), etc. The vast majority of textual variations are due to unintentional changes that the scribes created. Indeed, virtually every manuscript of the New Testament ever written introduces new textual variants that were unknown previously.

For example, I am currently working on a manuscript of Luke’s Gospel that is not yet catalogued by the INTF (Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung or Institute for New Testament Textual Criticism) in Münster, Germany. I will be posting both the transcription of the manuscript and images of it on the website of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (www.csntm.org) in a couple of weeks. It’s a tenth-eleventh century minuscule manuscript that is predominantly Byzantine in its textual character. Continue Reading »

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FOXNews.com today published 21 questions that it says represent “some widely held beliefs and misconceptions about Mormonism” and answers provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since some (not all) of the Church’s answers were less than forthright, I will offer straight answers to the same questions. Fox’s questions appear first in bold type, followed by the Church’s responses in italics, and then followed by my answers.

Q: Why do some call the Church a cult?
A: For the most part, this seems to stem from a lack of understanding about the Church and its core doctrines and beliefs. Under those circumstances it is too easy to label a religion or other organization that is not well-known with an inflammatory term like ‘cult.’ Famed scholar of religion Martin Marty has said a cult means a church you don’t personally happen to like. We don’t believe any organization should be subjected to a label that has come to be as pejorative as that one.
The above answer makes no attempt to understand why some people call the LDS Church a cult. Continue Reading »

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