Parchment & Pen Blog

Jeffrey Bingham, the chair of the theology department at Dallas Theological Seminary, has a phrase he uses when people advocate something that is not a part of the historic Christian faith: “It’s something, but it’s not Christian.” More and more lately I have been asking this question: When do we, in our zeal to remove [...]

Credo Clips: Theology in three minutes.

Editors Note: In addition to all of our online ministries and curriculum we spend time every day answering questions through email. A man contacted our ministry last week saying his female friend was worried wondering if she’s a part of the elect. I thought it beneficial to post the response to these two people: My [...]

Last night I went to pick  Zach, my three-year-old, up from his class at church. When I dropped him off, the sign-in sheet asked, “Any special instructions?” I hesitated, then left it blank. I suppose that this was a mistake. When I went to get him, I lifted him up and sat him on my hip only [...]

The following horse and water illustration that follows is taken from Millard Erickson’s book Postmodernizing the Faith. I use this and expand on it. How should Christians engage a post-Christian, post-evangelical world, suspicious generation of people? How do we engage postmoderns? Follow me here through this “Leading a horse to water” illustration. Here are the [...]

I have been thinking through some issues related to Ecclesiology lately, which in part is prompted by the fact that one of my courses this semester is Sanctification and Ecclesiology (although we recently started discussions on the Ecclesiology portion).  Specifically, I have been pondering what the church’s responsibility is towards educating its people with respect [...]

Thanks to my friend Larry Moyer of EvanTell for putting this together.

On my second trip to Europe this summer, I visited the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. My hotel was just off of Ludwigstrasste, about a mile and a half from the library. I’ve been to Germany many times now, even living there for a year. I was used to sedate, polite, not-too-emotional, always-in-control people. Not too [...]