Parchment & Pen Blog

In no certain order: My mother: Although she is much different today (due to her state of mind after the stroke), she stood as rock for the faith all my life, never losing her passion for the lost and showing me this by example everyday. Dan Wallace: Beyond the brilliance, Dan’s commitment to the truth [...]

Please note, I have added to the post to clarify. See the parenthetical addition in italics. So many times I want to throw in the ministry towel and be “normal”—to have a normal job with normal responsibilities.  Maybe some of you out there know what I mean. Love, joy, peace, patience…you know the rest. Sometimes [...]

There would certainly be little quibble from someone who suggested that doctrine develops. There would also be no problems when someone suggests that earlier writers of the Old Testament knew less than later writers. The idea here is doctrinal development within the canon, often referred to as the doctrine of progressive revelation. For example, we [...]

1. Preunderstanding fallacy: Believing you can interpret with complete objectivity, not recognizing that you have preunderstandings that influence your interpretation. There is no such thing as a “white-coat” interpreter. In other words, there is no one who comes to the text as a scientist who objectively interprets the data. We all are influenced by many things including [...]

As a Christian, I would love to have a magic wand.  I would wave it like the fairy godmother did in Cinderella and make obstacles that impede my spiritual progress to magically disappear.  Poof!  Now they’re gone, all the nagging doubts, issues from my past that seem to crop up in certain situations, pain that [...]

My sincere thanks to Michael for inviting me to guest post this series.  I manage the Evangelical Portal at Patheos (you can see the Vision for the Portal here, and you can check out a great sample article , an interview with a Christian professor at Harvard Law School with terminal cancer). Every now and [...]

As many of you know, I have written much about the epidemic of people losing their faith. It is not only a concern, but an obsession of mine. Because of this, I engage with quite a few people on the issue. I often feel as if I serve as a last chance stop for many [...]

I am not a charismatic.  It is hard for me to describe myself as a traditional cessationist either. I refer to myself as a “de facto” cessationist. What does this mean? Essentially, when it comes to the so-called supernatural sign gifts such as gifts of tongues, prophecy, workers of miracles, etc, I have never seen [...]