I recently received a question from an old acquaintance, a question that keys off a video clip answer I gave about Eastern Orthodoxy. So here is the question: “On what grounds do you reject the authority of the 7th Ecumenical Council? As Christians, we consider the JW’s (for example) outside the church, because they reject …
Dry Bones Born Again
My friend Peter Leithart tags to an argument by Alan Kerr on the Spirit in John 3. Kerr’s argument, in sum, is that in the gospel of John, the Spirit is not given until later in the gospel (John 20:22). This means, on this reading, that whatever Jesus was talking about with Nicodemus could only …
No Hope Without It
In an oral exam yesterday for one of our grad students, the phrase “faith of Jesus Christ” came up (Gal 2:16; 3:22), along with the question/debate of whether this refers to Jesus Christ’s faith or to our faith in Him. I have generally taken it as the former, but that is not my point here. …
For the Church
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 …