Bill Pratt | December 16, 2011
Post Author: Bill Pratt In part 2 we discovered the “German Christian” movement, a group that wanted to conform Christianity to German nationalism. In part 3, we complete our survey of this heretical campaign. Again, we draw heavily from Eric Metaxas’s biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Recall that the German Christians sought to radically reinterpret and [...]
Bill Pratt | December 15, 2011
Post Author: Bill Pratt In part 1 we saw the plans that the National Socialists had for the German Lutheran Church during the 1930′s and 1940′s. In parts 2 and 3 we will review how the church reacted to the attempted Nazification of their doctrines and beliefs. Again, we draw heavily from Eric Metaxas’s excellent biography [...]
Bill Pratt | November 30, 2011
Post Author: Bill Pratt I’ve mentioned Paul Copan’s book Is God a Moral Monster? before, but I ran across this video clip where historical Jesus scholar Mike Licona interviews Copan about alleged genocide in the Old Testament. Copan summarizes some very key arguments from his book during this informative clip.
Bill Pratt | March 31, 2011
Post Author: Bill Pratt Many Christians, as they read the book of Joshua, are uncomfortable with the accounts of conquest that are recorded there. The conquest of Jericho is the first in Canaan for the Israelites. The biblical writer describes the battle of Jericho this way in Josh. 6:20-21: When the trumpets sounded, the army [...]
Bill Pratt | March 24, 2011
Post Author: Bill Pratt If you’re reading a Bible passage, when should you start thinking about how it applies to your life? Many of us think that this is the first thing we should do after reading a passage, but I want to discourage that way of thinking. Before thinking about how a passage applies [...]
Bill Pratt | February 2, 2011
Post Author: Bill Pratt No, it wasn’t. Not only does the New Testament book of Hebrews make clear that it was temporary, but the Old Testament itself promises a new covenant in Jer. 31 and Ezek. 36. Should we completely ignore the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament where the Law is [...]
Darrell | January 3, 2011
Post Author: Darrell In my last post, I conducted a poll as to whether or not the Nicene Creed is relevant and authoritative in Christianity today. Thus far, the results are as follows: 48% believe it to be both relevant and authoritative, 21% believe it to be relevant, but not authoritative, and a relatively small [...]
Bill Pratt | December 20, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt The Book of Revelation, according to some Christians, teaches a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth after his second coming (see Rev. 20). This will then be followed by the creation of a new heaven and new earth. This view is known today as premillenialism. But there are other Christians, [...]
Darrell | December 13, 2010
Post Author: Darrell I recently spent some time on a Christian Facebook page that ministers to Mormons. It is mostly made up of ex-Mormon Christians who feel very strongly about their faith and want to reach out to Mormons. They write articles explaining the differences between Traditional Christianity and Mormonism and the problems with Mormon Theology [...]
Bill Pratt | November 17, 2010
Post Author: Bill Pratt The Bible contains numerous proverbial sayings (not just in the Book of Proverbs), and these sayings have some characteristics that must be kept in mind when reading them. These characteristics can also be found in non-biblical proverbial literature. Biblical scholar Walter Kaiser lists a few of these characteristics in his book [...]
