There are many helpful resources for those who want to engage the Bible on a deeper level. The big question is how to know which resources might be the most helpful. Periodically, I encounter resources that I think distinguish themselves from the myriad of available options. It is a safe bet that a resource book on Bible charts, maps, and timelines will not hit the bestseller list. However, Jack Beck鈥檚 The Baker Book of Bible Charts, Maps, and Timelines has recently been published, and I think it will benefit Christians, pastors, and scholars, who want to engage the Bible more deeply. I have reached out to Jack and asked him to answer a few questions that might help you in understanding the purposes behind this new book ...
Critics have sometimes claimed that marriage is not that important to God. But interestingly, the Bible both begins and ends with a marriage. In fact, marriage is the defining metaphor God uses to illustrate His love for the Church, His 鈥渂ride" ...
Small talk. Bible study talk. Prayer requests. Sports, kids, and work talk. When and how do we get to meaningful fellowship of sharing with other Christians what God is doing in our lives? Are there conditions in small groups that help people to share their lives with others? Are there conditions that cause people to clam up and stick to the safe details of a public persona? ...
When we say 鈥淗e is risen. He is risen indeed!鈥 we are not merely stating a remarkable historical fact, not merely expressing our shared doctrine, not merely standing in line with a long tradition of hope. We are doing all of that. But we are doing more. We are joining the great protest chant against all the dehumanization, death, and decay of the present age and heralding, here and now, the subversive breaking in of the glorious age to come in the resurrected Jesus.
What happened on Good Friday is so scandalous and profound that the Bible does not limit itself to a single explanation. Dutch theologian, Herman Bavinck, explains, 鈥淸T]he work of Christ is so multifaceted that it cannot be captured in a single word nor summarized in a single formula." 鈥淢ultifaceted鈥 is exactly the right word for the cross. It brings to mind the image of a giant deep-cut diamond, a unity with a multiple facets, each refracting rays off and through the other. Let鈥檚 take one lap around this flawless wonder and look at six things to celebrate this Friday and every day...
Have you ever noticed how discontentment with the circumstances of our lives spawns all kinds of problems? Some time ago I missed the freeway exit while driving with my family. Of course, the next opportunity to exit was several miles further down and, due to some road construction, taking this exit led me on a seemingly never-ending detour in order to get back to the freeway. With our toddler crying in the car seat, I was anything but content with how things were going. As the discontentment grew I became more and more anxious about getting where we needed to go, frustrated with myself, impatient with the detour, and angry about our situation. All of this eventually spilled over in a pitiful attempt to blame my wife for my having missed the exit in the first place! ...
Our culture is obsessed with happiness. From the movies we watch, the purchases we make, and our obsessive use of technology and social media, it is clear that many people today live for happiness. You might be thinking, 鈥淪o what? Isn鈥檛 happiness a good thing?鈥 Well, that depends on what is meant by happiness ...
... The Old Testament background is very helpful for understanding the deeper meaning of the New Testament scriptures. In the transfiguration account, we read in Matthew 17 that Jesus 鈥渨as transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.鈥 We remember that in the Old Testament, after Moses went up Mount Sinai to meet with God and receive the ten commandments, his face 鈥渨as radiant,鈥 and he wore a veil (Exodus 34:33-35). Matthew 17 is showing us that Jesus is the new (but better) Moses ...
Don鈥檛 you just hate it/love it when a book takes a long-standing ministry practice or cultural disposition you鈥檝e unwittingly nurtured and totally applies the ol鈥 command-option-esc (or control-alt-delete to be P.C.) to completely reset things? A text I鈥檝e been reading for the Kern Reading group at Talbot School of Theology--namely, Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert鈥檚, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2012)--just pulled this on me. Let me explain ...
Dr. Craig, I cannot thank you enough for your philosophical and theological work. Your work and Reasonable Faith is a constant encouragement and motivation to me as a Christian. In a unit on German philosophy (in a specific section on Leipniz), I recently had my German 3 class translate, discuss and respond to your argument, "Gott ist die beste Erkl盲rung warum 眉berhaupt etwas existiert," from your debate with Ansgar Beckermann. Your argument provoked a reaction and interest I was not expecting. Here is my question: Why do you not employ the laws of logic as evidence for the existence of God? It seems to me that God (a necessarily existing mind) is the best explanation for the laws of logic in a similar way that he (a necessary personal being of moral perfection) is the best explanation for certain necessary moral truths. Am I mistaken about logic as evidence for the existence of God? Is there a reason the laws of logic should not be used in an argument similar to your argument from objective moral values and duties? ...
Jes煤s fue un inmigrante. Todos los cristianos tambi茅n somos inmigrantes. Por lo tanto, Cristo se identifica con nosotros y nos entiende. Como sus seguidores debemos imitar su ejemplo y aprender de 茅l. Tambi茅n debemos mostrar compasi贸n por aquellos que son extranjeros al venir de otros pa铆ses y regiones ya que reconocemos que todos nosotros somos tambi茅n peregrinos y extranjeros ...
Jesus was an immigrant. All Christians are also immigrants. Therefore, Christ identifies himself with us and understands our situation. As his followers we should imitate his example and learn from him. We should have compassion for those foreigners who come from different regions and countries because we recognize that we all are also strangers and exiles on earth ...
Thaddeus Williams was a dorm mate of mine as an undergrad at Biola, and now we are both on faculty for our alma mater. Dr. Williams is also an author and frequent speaker at churches and conferences. He gave me the opportunity to endorse his most recent book Reflect: Becoming Yourself by Mirroring the Greatest Person in History, and I found it both insightful and enjoyable. He was kind enough to answer a few of my questions. Enjoy this interview and think about getting a copy of his excellent book.
Last week I had the opportunity of co-leading a trip of 30+ high school students to stay at the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row for three days. The students served meals in the kitchen, played Bingo with Mission residents, cleaned, played with children, served cold water to people living in the streets, shared meals with strangers, and much more. The trip was life changing for me, the students, and we hope maybe even some of the people at the URM ...
Have you ever experienced pain from someone you deeply love? I have. Few things in life are harder. The hurt penetrates even deeper when the person who has spurned you also turns his back on the Lord. Following is a list I drew up in my journal some time ago during a period when I was facing rejection from someone I deeply loved. This list helped me remember that there are examples in the Bible of others before me who experienced relational pain from close family members, friends, or mentees, but who continued to look to the Lord in the midst of their sorrow ...
Hello sir, I'm pursuing MA in Philosophy (Mysore University, India) and have completed Bachelor of Divinity (Serampore University). I just got into trouble with Hindu Monistic views after attending some lectures, and I don't know who to enquire other than you. Is Christian a Dualist? For us, Creation and Creator are totally different and so the existence of evil. When we reach the pearly gates, we will still be human beings not Divine Being. But for Hindu, when a person is liberated, he/she becomes one with God. So their ultimate reality is One. What about us? Is our ultimate reality One or two? Or? ...
We have all heard the grim news: Church attendance is declining across denominations and young people are disengaging the church.[1] In an effort to address this problem, the team at Fuller Youth Institute has released a new book: Growing Young: 6 Essential Strategies to Help Young People Discover and Love Your Church (Kara Powell, Jake Mulder, and Brad Griffin). What makes Growing Young unique is that it is based upon an in-depth study of scholars, national ministry leaders, youth ministry experts, as well as research and visits to 363 diverse congregations who have effective ministries to young people. Like their previous book Sticky Faith, this book is based on careful research and analysis ...
With the globalization of everything in today鈥檚 society, the concept that the whole world is my 鈥渘eighbor鈥 to love (i.e. help) is a valid mindset. I can see images of impoverished children on my phone; I can visit communities with economic challenges on the other side of the globe through international travel. Organizations such as ONE (whose celebrity advocate Bono rallies millions of his fans to sign its petitions and give money at U2 concerts) and Compassion International (which enlists millions of church-goers to sponsor a child in need by allowing a donor to see pictures of the children and pick the child based on looks and/or the desired country the person is drawn to) have rallied countless Christians and non-Christians alike to eliminate poverty in our lifetime. All of these streams of conscious-searing 鈥渧oices鈥 call me to get involved to help the less fortunate, which I can do, they say, 鈥渨ith minimal effort鈥 on my part: simply give a few dollars a month, about the same amount I spend on coffee each week. So how can I resist this simple call to help? ...
... Understanding the Jewish background of the first century helps us to understand the biblical story with a greater depth and appreciation. For example, most modern Christians mistakenly assume that the early followers of Jesus expected Jesus to resurrect from the dead. But that is far from the truth ...
Israel cried out, 鈥淕ive us a king!鈥 (1 Samuel 8:6). Against his will, God gave his people what they wanted. A real superstar. Saul was the handsomest and tallest man around (9:2). That didn鈥檛 work out very well, did it? It never does ...
Dr. Craig, my question has two parts. First, would agree that if the body of Christ were to be found that this would give good reason to think Christianity is false? Assuming of course that we could know that the body was in fact Christ's body. This seems to be a reasonable proposition in my view. Now, the question I'm wrestling with is this: you examine and refute a number of natural explanations for resurrection of Christ and the facts surrounding this event. However, if it should so happen that archaeologists find Christ's body tomorrow morning, then one of those natural explanations for the resurrection of Christ would have to be true! Yet you have ardently maintained that they could not possibly be true. Is this at all problematic philosophically? ...
Los cristianos son seguidores de Jesucristo. La palabra que se usaba en los tiempos de Jes煤s para designar a sus seguidores es disc铆pulos. Por lo tanto, ser un cristiano es ser un disc铆pulo de Cristo (Hechos 11:26). En Lucas 14:25-35, y en otros pasajes m谩s, Jes煤s establece los requisitos para los que quieran ser sus disc铆pulos. Grandes multitudes le segu铆an asombradas de su mensaje y autoridad. Sin embargo, Jes煤s no estaba complacido solamente con que mucha gente le siguiera sino que 茅l deseaba que aquellos que tomaran la decisi贸n de hacerlo, lo hicieran de acuerdo a unas normas espec铆ficas. As铆 que, Jes煤s se detuvo y deline贸 en esta ocasi贸n cuatro caracter铆sticas indispensables para sus seguidores. Para ser un buen cristiano o disc铆pulo de Cristo es necesario cumplir con las condiciones que Jesucristo indica.
As a high school student, I went to a two-week worldview experience in the mountains of Colorado Springs called Summit Ministries. I had no idea what I was getting myself in to. Looking back now, over two decades later, I realize that it was one of the most formative faith experiences of my life. Although there were probably a couple dozen speakers at Summit (who addressed all sorts of worldview issues related to theology, economics, apologetics, science, and more), my favorite was Dr. Jeff Myers. He has since become a good friend of mine, and he is now the president of Summit Ministries, a vital worldview experience for students. Dr. Myers is a popular speaker, the author of many books (including one of my favorites, Handoff), and is one of the most important contemporary voices in the church ...
In our day, wherever it is found, the fruits of intellectual inquiry grow from the conviction that there is such a thing as truth out there to discover. Take an axe to the existence of truth and you no longer have education, you have propaganda. Ideologies that deny the very possibility of truth can be found in many (thankfully, not all) fields of education. In the quip of postmodern philosopher, Richard Rorty, truth is simply a matter of whatever your colleagues will let you get away with saying. With no truth to seek and discover, we are left with only social constructs to endlessly dream up and deconstruct. In the words of one lamenting Harvard graduate, 鈥淭he freedom of our day is the freedom to devote ourselves to any values we please, on the mere condition that we do not believe them to be true." When the very idea of truth is considered so out-of-fashion, schools gradually turn from the pursuit of knowledge to the business of data transfer, indoctrination, and diploma-printing ...
... Kids today are surrounded by a secularized society that bombards them with advertising, television, and social media messages. Parents are juggling demanding careers and family life in light of societal pressures to be more, do more, and have more. Our good intentions of helping, protecting, and providing for our kids can quickly turn to enabling or even disabling them. How do we help our kids grow into mature Christ followers without falling into the trap of enabling or disabling them? ...
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