In an interview with Ehrman by Ruth Graham (2014) with the Boston Globe, Ehrman stated:
The problem is that Jesus only makes claims for himself as being divine in the Gospel of John .... But what scholars have long noted is that Jesus doesn’t say any of those things in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are [written] much earlier than John .... What I argue in the book (How Jesus Became God) is that it’s virtually inconceivable that if it was known Jesus called himself God, that Matthew, Mark, and Luke would just leave that part out.
Read moreThe influence of Jonathan Edward’s (1703-1758) sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” is legendary. It has been called the most well-known sermon in American history. Edward’s influence, however, was greater with his family. Jonathan and Sarah had eleven children. For one hour before dinner, Edwards would gather his children together and help them with schoolwork and talk about their day. Edwards wrote, “Every house should be a little church.”
Read moreTim Keller rejects the view of Richard Dawkins who “argues that you cannot be an intelligent scientific thinker and still hold religious beliefs.” But Keller believes the view of a six twenty-four-hour day creation is “fortunately … losing credibility with a growing number of scholars.” In both Dawkins’ and Keller’s view, science has undermined the interpretation of Scripture. Keller even says, “There is no necessary disjunction between science and devout faith.” Keller repudiates the literal interpretation of Genesis one and two in order to believe in theistic evolution: “It is false logic to argue that if one part of Scripture can’t be taken literally then none of it can be.” The theologians who hold to the different forms of theistic evolution contradict themselves in rejecting the creation of the universe in six twenty-four-hour days in order to accommodate the science of atheistic evolution.
Read moreI read of a local satanic assembly that actually held all night prayer services, praying against the pastor of one church. This cult met in a house located directly behind the church. They even sent letters to the church telling them of their evil practice. The pastor, a great pulpiteer, soon left his wife. The Satan worshipers then left the area (Merida, Tony. Faithful Preaching (pp. 146-147). B&H Publishing. Kindle Edition).
Read moreThose involved in “deliverance ministries” say it is necessary to bind Satan in the unsaved to give the gospel. “The experienced deliverance minister can compel evil spirits to tell the truth. I do so all the time….To evangelize the demonized we must learn how to bind demonic activity from the minds of demonized unbelievers” (Ed Murphy, We Are at War, pages 51 and 58). What about Romans 1:16 which says that the gospel is the power of God to those who believe?
Read moreMichael Horton (2011) writes that most of the 27 books of the New Testament in the first century "were already widely recognized and employed regularly in public worship as divinely inspired. In fact, this was one criterion that was used for determining which texts were canonical" (p. 194). This is also why determining which books were inspired and canonical was important. The early believers wanted to know which books to read in their public worship services.
Read moreThe Church of the Latter Day Saints believes that the Book of Mormons was inscribed on golden plates in some form of the Egyptian language, described as Reformed Egyptian by Joseph Smith. The golden plates were buried in the hills of Manchester, New York by the last of their prophets, Moroni. Later, Moroni, the prophet returned as an angel and informed the prophet Joseph Smith where the golden plates were located. On September 22, 1827, Joseph Smith started translating the Book of Mormons and three years later the Book of Mormons went on sale.
Read moreBart Ehrman contends that we cannot trust the Bible because we do not have the original autographs but only copies of copies of copies which are riddled with scribal errors or textual variants. Ehrman (Misquoting Jesus [Kindle] HarperCollins e-books. 2005) discusses how this issue plagued him in his Biblical studies at Moody, Wheaton, and Princeton:
I kept reverting to my basic question: how does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact, we don’t have the words that God inerrantly inspired, but only the words copied by the scribes— sometimes correctly but sometimes (many times!) incorrectly? What good is it to say that the autographs (i.e., the originals) were inspired? We don’t have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways (Kindle location 139).
Read moreBefore Ehrman went to seminary and began to doubt Scripture, Ehrman allowed suffering in his family to start turning him away from God. He (2009) relates one incident when his dad was dying of cancer in the hospital.
Read moreJesus authoritatively declared, “Thy Word is Truth (John 17:17)!” It is up to you to believe His claim that God’s Word is trustworthy or to reject as contradictory. Those who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture and those who reject the truthfulness of Scripture have the same evidence and yet come to opposite conclusions. The same is true with Christ as the Son of God. Those who receive Him and those who reject Him as Savior both have the same facts. One repudiates and one accepts. I will give one example of each: Bart Ehrman and Lee Strobel.
Read moreIn Scripture, names are very important. Solomon in Ecclesiastes 7:2 wrote that a good name is more valuable than great riches: “A good name is better than precious ointment.” The most expensive women’s perfume is Clive Christian. It is made in England and it cost $5,000.00 for 1.05 ounces. But if you order on-line you get free shipping. Solomon, who knew the exorbitant life, said, your reputation is your most valuable possession.
Read moreOn September 23 at 12:00 noon in 1857, Jeremiah Lanphier conducted his first prayer meeting in the Old Dutch North Church at Fulton and Williams Streets in New York City. The church was in decline and hired this businessman to visit and build up the church. He decided to hold a prayer meeting. Only six showed up, but it was decided to meet again during the lunch hour when businesses closed from 12-1:00 p.m. Twenty men came the next Wednesday and forty the following week. The group decided to meet daily.
Read moreThe prayer of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke makes for a good series. It will be noticed that Luke who stressed the humanity of Jesus only recorded that Jesus prayed on many of the occasions that the other Gospel writers mentioned. For example, Matthew recorded the transfiguration of Jesus in Matthew 17, but only Luke mentioned that Jesus was praying when he was transfigured (Lk 9:29).
Read more“There are still 25% of the world’s population who have never heard of Christ,” writes William Lane Craig, Bible Scholar and Apologist at Talbot School of Theology (Reasonable Faith. Doctrine of General Revelation Part 2: (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders). Can these be saved if they never receive the Gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Will they die in their sin if they never hear through no fault of their own? Is ignorance an excuse?
Read moreNatural Theology was the reaction of William Paley (1743-1805) to Enlightenment’s skeptical David Hume (1711-1776) who denied all revelation, the teleological argument, and miracles. William Paley wrote Natural Theology and famously defended the teleological argument or the Design/Designer argument with the illustration of the watch found in the desert. Not all theologians believe Natural theology is valid. Michael Horton represents this group: “Our natural experience of God is itself an interpretation, and as the interpretation of our fallen hearts, it is corrupt. As soon as we see a glimmering ember of divine truth we smother it, and this is why there can be no true natural theology, even though we are swimming in general revelation.”[1] This is the strong presuppositional view that many great theologian like Dr. John Whitcomb held to. I will argue that Scripture presents God using both evidentialist and presuppositional approach. For example, Paul in Acts 14 at Lystra first preached the gospel in 14:7 and then employed the teleological argument in 14:15-17.
Read moreA. J. Jacobs gave what is now a well-known TED talk on My Year of Living the Bible in December 2007. He turned that speech into a book entitled: The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. This book was on the NYT bestseller’s list for three months.
A. J. Jacobs, who is an agnostic, did this experiment for one year. Here is the reason for his experiment: “I'm concerned about the rise of religious fundamentalism, and people who say they take the Bible literally, which is, according to some polls, as high as 45 or 50 percent of America. So, I decided, what if you really did take the Bible literally? I decided to take it to its logical conclusion and take everything in the Bible literally, without picking and choosing.”
Here is his first takeaway from one year of seeking to prove the Bible cannot be taken literally: “The first is, thou shalt not take the Bible literally. This became very, very clear, early on. Because if you do, then you end up acting like a crazy person and stoning adulterers.” God’s chosen people in the OT was the nation of Israel. When Jesus came and offered the kingdom and himself as king to the nation, Israel rejected him. In response, Jesus postponed the kingdom and set aside Israel temporarily. The church today is the people of God not the nation of Israel. While God commanded capital punishment for certain sins in the OT with the nation of Israel, God does not command the church to put to death its members for any sin. God takes sin just as seriously today as He did in the Old Testament. According to 1 Corinthians 5, the church does not stone adulterers in this age but rather the church disciplines them.
Read more1. Definition of Biblical Theology
D. A. Carson admits the difficulty of defining Biblical Theology because of the diversities of views of Biblical Theology: “To relate the nature and functions of systematic theology and biblical theology respectively proves distractingly difficult because various scholarly camps operate with highly divergent definitions of both disciplines and therefore also entertain assumptions and adopt methods that cannot be reconciled with those of other scholarly camps.”[2] Klink and Edwards discuss the Chicago School, Dallas School, and the Philadelphia School of Biblical theology. All three have different views of what constitutes Biblical Theology.
Read moreGregg Allison discusses two approaches to historical theology. There are two basic approaches commonly found in historical theology: synchronic and diachronic.
Read moreIn Scott M. Gibson’s and Matthew D. Kim’s Homiletics and Hermeneutics (Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition, 2018) Paul Scott Wilson presents his view of interpreting and preaching called the Law-Gospel view. Wilson’s one text, one theme, one doctrine, one need, one image, and one mission is just another way of saying what many homileticians describe as one preaching unit or the text (one text), one MPS (one theme), Argumentation (one doctrine), Interest Step in the Introduction (one need), Illustration (one image), and Application (one mission).
Read moreRoy Zuck in Basic Bible Interpretation noted that “In the Middle Ages words, phrases, and sentences in the bible had taken on multiple meanings, losing all sense of objectivity.”[1] All of the multiple meanings could not be correct. In chapter three, Zuck asked, “Whose view is valid?” All of the views are not valid.
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