There was a woman I know who fell in love and married a man from another culture, another religion, different ways very foreign to her known life. Her husband鈥檚 father had died before she met him, so she entered this single parent family wholeheartedly and her mother-in-law taught her a new way of living and loving where their house became a home and she felt she belonged.This was so true that when her husband died ten years into their marriage, she made a commitment to her mother-in-law.
Among the prominent themes within the Old Testament, YHWH鈥檚 election of Israel to be his special people is especially significant. However, the idea that YHWH chose one specific group to be his special people has offended many people in the modern world, for whom the ideals of equality and equal opportunity are very important. If YHWH chose Israel, did he reject the other nations? This post will examine two groups whom YHWH views ambiguously in the Torah to explore in more detail YHWH鈥檚 relationship with non-Israelite nations in light of the election of Israel.
In my last post (What Does The Fox Say? Who is the Fox Anyway?) I wrote about Herod Antipas. As I was writing, I realized that a lot of people get confused about who 鈥淗erod鈥� is in the Bible. This isn鈥檛 surprising since there are actually six different (!) 鈥淗erods鈥� in the New Testament, and they are all somehow related to each other. Here are thumbnail sketches to help you keep track of who鈥檚 who...
Dr. Craig, I read your excellent book "Creation out of Nothing" and I agree with it! However, doesn't God need tremendous (if not infinite) energy to create something out of nothing? Is God's energy something rather than nothing? What is God's Mind made of if it is immaterial?...
You may have heard it said that email is dead. But, don鈥檛 believe it. According to a report in Harvard Business Review (June 2013), based on a survey of 2,600 workers in the USA, UK, and South Africa, people continue to spend four hours of every working day dealing with e-mail. The reason? They like it, trust it, and find it an effective collaboration tool.
Christians desire guidance for how to integrate their God life with their work life鈥攅specially those in the business sector. 鈥淲hatever you do, do it all to the glory of God鈥� (1 Cor. 10:31, NIV). Listed below are three insightful perspectives on this issue. The first two frameworks overlap in some ways, but they also bring out distinctive contributions, and offer particular guidance to help close the Sunday-Monday gap. Some may tend to compartmentalize work life as a second class necessity, and that the real action of Christian living takes place within the church facilities. We want to bring our whole life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, on Sunday and the rest of the week.
This is the second post in a series of blogs dealing with gun control from a Christian perspective. In the first installment (鈥淪eek the Welfare of the City鈥�), I sketched the general theological case for sane restriction on guns, particularly assault weapons, and applied biblical principles to common objections. Now I will begin looking at biblical texts used by Christian gun advocates to support their view that Scripture supports unrestricted access to lethal weaponry for private individuals. In this installment I examine Luke 22:36, where Jesus tells his disciples, 鈥淎nd let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.鈥�
El valor, dignidad y prop贸sito del ser humano tiene su base en el Dios trino. Tanto el hombre como la mujer son la corona de la obra divina al ser creados a la imagen y semejanza de Dios: 鈥淵 Dios cre贸 al ser humano a su imagen; lo cre贸 a imagen de Dios. Hombre y mujer los cre贸鈥� (Gen. 1:27). Cada una de las personas de la Santa Trinidad vive en completa armon铆a con las dem谩s. El Padre, el Hijo y el Esp铆ritu Santo se afirman uno al otro y tienen una relaci贸n perfecta en todos los sentidos. Nosotros somos seres sociales porque reflejamos a nuestro creador y es en el matrimonio en el que podemos experimentar de alguna manera una perfecta relaci贸n al igual que nuestro Dios. El matrimonio es idea de Dios (Gen. 2:18-25) y a trav茅s de nuestro c贸nyuge podemos apreciar el favor de Dios cuando crecemos juntos en una relaci贸n de completa intimidad y aceptaci贸n.
Hello Dr. Craig! I'm a follower of your work and a fan of yours. I study your books just about everyday so I can learn and prepare myself as a Christian for the rest of the world waiting to maul me where I stand! I have question for you today regarding the second premise of your moral argument. This argument is dear to me because I recognized that there truly is good and evil in our world and I came to Christianity because I truly believed in love, justice, and so forth. (Keep in mind this was also before I even knew about this argument!). So when I found out about this argument when I discovered your work I was astonished! So you can see why this argument is dear to me, because it's so close in how I came to Christ!
Recent news reports[1] are claiming that the references to camels in the patriarchal narratives (Gen 12:16; etc.) of Genesis are 鈥渁nachronistic,鈥� or historically out of place, because there is allegedly no evidence for camel domestication before the tenth century BC. This claim is actually not new, since it was made by W. F. Albright over seventy years ago, but is it true?
1The teacher said, 鈥淗ear now the parable of the foolish weightlifter. 2A certain man wished to become stronger and to run and not grow weary. So he went to the gymnasium, paying the gymnasium-master three obols.a 3The man began lifting bars with weights upon them, first one talent,b then two. But he was not able to lift three talents. 4So the man said to himself, 鈥淪oul, your arms are very sore. You are not able to lift so many talents.鈥�
In my last blog, I attempted to explain some aspects of shame and how it is different from guilt, as well as to show how shame should be defined more in terms of a relational understanding rather than simply a judicial aspect of exchange. This blog will show a connection between 1st century Roman culture and 21st century Asian-American culture and the lessons that can be learned from studying and comparing both.
Dear Dr. Craig, I am currently studying for 2 University degrees (Philosophy and Biology) in Sydney, Australia. As I am sure your aware from your recent tour of Australia my country tends to lean toward a secular approach more so than your home country. While I am by no means a Christian, I do find, time and again, that even the teachers鈥� presupposition of an atheistic worldview bleeds through their approach to discourse and find myself consistently challenging the 鈥榓uthority鈥� as it were. In turn resulting in an un-intended theistic outcome. For this reason I have decided to first complete both disciplines and if my theistic outcome prevails then seriously consider deliberating upon the truths of different religions and see if I can hold any consistently without intellectual debt...
Everyone knows we should pray more than we do, that prayer is really important, and that any hero of the faith has had prayer as a massive ingredient of their life. Even Jesus had to pray. After reading through Donald Bloesch鈥檚 The Struggle of Prayer, I have noticed five barriers to prayer in my life, and some ways of tunneling through or around them.
I am working on a sermon about the church at Antioch (Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3). As I prepare, I am struck by the open-handed generosity of this church, with respect both to financial resources and personnel.
So we eat. We are dependent on many and ultimately God for the grace of our continued diets. We say grace at mealtimes in recognition of that dependence. For all that, many of us don鈥檛 consider that theology has much to do with meals and eating.
Of course, if you are going to use a lens of food and hospitality to teach theology, you鈥檇 better be ready to feed your students. The beginning of semester means a marathon Welsh cake baking session in the Draycott home. In our January intensive Interterm, I get to welcome the whole class to our home for a session of teaching. In regular semester the larger classes don鈥檛 allow this. But hospitality then becomes an experiential learning project for the students. Throughout the semester, in groups they will have eaten a meal together and deliberately fasted and prayed together.
I teach my Theology II undergraduate survey course through the lens of a theology of food and hospitality. Over a few posts I鈥檒l share a number of elements that constitute the overall logic of the class. First, here, I share the formal shape of the class and how I see it fitting with our key concerns as a university. I shall later comment on my textbook choices and other resources that explore the theme. Also to come will be an account of how I frame what the task of theology is for my students through this lens, along with the measure of what I think can be achieved in a class.
The Fox is Herod Antipas. Jesus says so. If you don鈥檛 believe me, look at Luke 13:32. But what does this arrogant, sensual, and power-hungry tyrant say?
Nehemiah is one of the most heralded examples of leadership found in the scriptures. We have been focusing on his heart, and saw in Part One how he (1) cared enough to accurately assess the circumstances confronting his people; (2) was sensitive to the brokenness of his people; and (3) was focused continually on redeeming the lives of his people.
Pastors have many roles. They are teachers, evangelists, caregivers, guardians, and leaders. Much is written about these areas of endeavor, but perhaps none as much as leadership. Recently the Society of Human Resource Managers released figures from a global survey of corporations that revealed 57% of all of the organizations surveyed employ outside vendors to provide leadership training. Companies know the great importance of good leadership.
In this audio recording, Dr. Cardoza uses 1 Thessalonians 2 to discuss eight biblical characteristics of disciplers. "Discipling people is one of the most fundamentally important things we can do as Christians. The great commission tells us to make disciples; the New Testament is replete - especially in the gospels and acts - with examples of discipling..."
In this audio recording, Dr. Cardoza discusses the idea of identifying who to personally disciple. "Because time is of the essence and our time is so valuable, and because we must invest our time wisely as stewards, something I often think about is this: If I'm going to work with someone, who should I work with?"
It was the fall of 1930. Just a year had passed since the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression. Adolf Hitler was on his meteoric rise to power in Germany. But God was powerfully at work in the Pennsylvania steel town of Pittsburgh. A 21-year-old Jewish man named Bezalel Feinberg had heard the Gospel and prayed to receive Christ. It sounds so simple, yet it was anything but.
I am not particularly enthralled with the spiritual gifts debate that is currently undergoing a renaissance of sorts, via John MacArthur鈥檚 Strange Fire conference and publications. Been there. Done that. I was a new believer when the same debate was raging back in the late 1970s, and it is a bit discouraging to see the church divided, once again, over a topic that was beat into the ground a generation ago.
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