So this is how it is possible to be a churchman and an evangelical. Not only is it possible, I believe that rightly understood, the two require each other. We are told that we are supposed to let the fire of our zeal burn hot — we are supposed to be on the boil (Rom. …
The Trumpets of Smooth Jazz
In my recent interaction with Brad Littlejohn about N.T. Wright, a phrase taken from Matt Anderson was invoked, that phrase being intellectual empathy. His original post on it is here, and in the main I think what he was saying — when applied to what he was talking about — is just fine. But there …
Right This Very Minute
Allow me to take just a brief moment to respond to some of the arguments presented here by Brad Littlejohn, in response to my recent interactions with N.T. Wright on the question of women’s ordination. Brad has a three basic problems with my take on the N.T. Wright business with women bishops. First, he is …
A Ham and Cheese Sandwich
So here are four things that are, unless I miss my guess, all part of the same conversation. Mark Galli reviews Kevin DeYoung’s book on Holiness here, and Justin Taylor tweeted this about it — “Galli’s critique of DeYoung on holiness seems very difficult to square with Heb 12:14.” Then Tullian wrote this about the …
Exegetical Confustication
Prodigal Thought chides me and a few other complementards for missing the main point of N.T. Wright’s piece on women’s ordination, which was the fact that the resurrection was absolutely transformative when it comes to issues like Jew/Gentile, slave/free, or male and female. The issues about Mary Magdalene, Junia, and Phoebe were side issues. What …
Serious Scholars Clown Car Review
In the previous post, I took N.T. Wright to task for trifling with the text of 1 Tim. 2:12, and for insulting our intelligence. A discussion broke out in the comments about whether I had been too cavalier and dismissive of Wright. So here’s a little something about all that. In the first place, I …
Fresh Butter at Ephesus
The other day, when I responded to N.T. Wright’s foray into extreme Pauline makeovers, a friend sent me a link to a longer and more scholarly defense of Wright’s posish. That link I now pass on to you. And being a good Christian, and a fair-minded soul, I read it. All the way to the …
Squeezing Harder Than That
The Church of England just recently said no to women bishops. There were howls of outrage from all the predictable quarters, for whom such a troglodyte move is just smack-the-forehead baffling. Now I can understand a vote against women bishops as a preliminary move to try to undo the ordination of women priests. And I …
No Christ Anywhere
When God judges the heart, He does so because sinners love the kind of dualism that gives their sin a place to hide. “You are near in their mouth but far from their mind” (Jer. 12:2b, NKJV). But when someone is unconverted, that condition is not a mystic invisibility, seen only by God. No, it …
When Looking to Abraham Isn’t
“Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, And to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, And unto Sarah that bare you: For I called him alone, And blessed him, and increased him” (Is. …