“The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” is when, exactly?
Each gospel highlights, in their very first sentence, the importance of where the gospel story begins, and yet each of the gospels begins in a different place.
Category: Featured
Pentecost: A Conversation with Dick Gaffin and Nancy Guthrie
I recently had the great privilege of joining Nancy Guthrie and my mentor and friend Dr. Dick Gaffin for a podcast about Pentecost. Pentecost is a surprisingly under-appreciated moment in the history of redemption.
Announcing a New Experiment: Greek Geek Weekly
This series will capture that process: the process of coming to understand how the Greek works. I know a lot about Greek, but I also don’t know a lot about Greek; in other words, I’m just like everyone who reads the GNT. I begin with what I know and then I have to puzzle through and research what I don’t. I hit a stumbling block; I get confused; I make mistakes; I double-down on those mistakes; I get corrected; I do research and (hopefully) reach a resolution.
5 Signs your Thesis is Bad (and how to fix it)
In honor of “paper-writing season” at universities and seminaries everywhere, I present to you a brief list of Bad Theses.
He Gave Us Fiction
We are made storied creatures. We are bound by a story; we are anchored in a narrative. This world in which we live and move and have our being is God’s world, and God has given this world a narrative structure. It’s all one big story. We have to understand the word of God within that story.
Is the NT Reliable? Part 5: The “Hard” Problem
Paul’s definition of the Gospel keeps going. Jesus continues to work by appearing to and appointing apostles. These apostles were eyewitness. They had unique authority. They are empowered to exercise that authority by the Holy Spirit. And at least part of what that authority entails is testimony.
The NT is that testimony. It is the apostolic deposit, the word-work of the eyewitnesses, the tradition that Paul and Peter and John entrusted to the church, the confession upon which the church is to stand and hold fast.
Is the NT Reliable? Part 4: Historiography
For Christians, theology and history are inextricably linked. Our theology and our way of life is described precisely in terms of what happened.
Is the NT Reliable? Part 3: Theology
The church speaks as one: we are Judean and Greek, we are one body, we will affirm one another’s expression of our common faith in Jesus the Christ. Amidst the diversity of Christian expression–some Christians live like Judeans and are zealous for the law of Moses (Acts 21), and some live like Gentiles (and yet have forsaken the ways of their forefathers, 1 Pet. 1:18)–amidst the diversity there is, nevertheless, a common core: Christ is Lord.
Is the NT Reliable? Part 2: The Text of the New Testament
It never claims to be a cohesive and singular work; on the contrary, the NT writers everywhere acknowledge that they are individual representatives of a larger body. They are “eyewitnesses,” and let me put the emphasis on the plural there. The whole point of Christianity is that it does not stem from the testimony of one man, but rather a plurality of women and men united only by the compelling evidence of what they saw.
Is the NT Reliable? Part 1: Reliable for What?
When we say that someone is reliable, that a newspaper is reliable, that an instructional video on YouTube is reliable, a comedian is reliable, we mean that they are generally trustworthy in a manner appropriate to the relationship that we sustain to that person or thing. Our friend is on time and engaged, the newspaper is reasonably unbiased and informed, the DIYer is accurate and helpful, the comedian is funny.