Throughout his life, John Wesley held to an orthodox view of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Godhead. It was his trinitarian understanding of the God that informed his view of the Spirit's role in the Christian life. So adamant was Wesley’s conviction of this doctrine that he noted at the conclusion […]
A minister, about to write an article criticizing a fellow minister for his lack of orthodoxy, wrote to John Newton of his intention. Newton replied in a letter that has now become famous, called Letter 19 - on controversy. The letter is one Calvinist writing to another Calvinist. In light of this, John Newton may […]
1. “Some well-organized business enterprise?” “We tend to think of Christ building his invisible church, and our building the visible church. We tend to think in this kind of dichotomy. So our building of the visible church becomes much like any natural business function, using natural means and natural motives. How many times do we […]
I recently over-heard a coffee house patron clam that ancient people could not practice ‘abortion’ like we do today. Ancient people did not even understand the female biology. Likely this ignorance was a case of chronological snobbery. The speaker assumed people in and around Jesus day had just learned about fire how could they even […]
Christians in the coming years will be asked questions like, why is the New Testament is silent about abortion? if abortion is so important, Why did Jesus not speak about the subject? If Paul loved the unborn - Why is there no clear prohibition in Paul’s writings? Many biblically literate in the pro-choice camp will […]
This is the third blog in a three part series on the modern attitude towards healing. Many people today may say that God “can” heal but those same people often have a negative attitude towards miraculous healing. Such a negative attitude is expressed in suspicious looks, cynical reasoning, dismissive conversations often ripe with bumper sticker […]
In a previous blog we looked at Kelsey’s four historical arguments about divine healing to answer the question; "why people lack an openness to Divine Healing?" He observed that many Christians today react emotionally when talking about divine healing and don't even entertain the concept of healing in their own lives, while intellectually claiming God […]
Writing in the 90’s, Garland’s word choice is oddly poignant for today. Commenting on chapter one of Mark He notes the particular way Jesus healed a leper. He touched him then heal him. Jesus was willing to touch the leper as a show of his compassion before he displayed his power. Such compassion should encouraging […]
In preparation to write the Mark study I found a commentary that quickly became my favorite. It is part of the NIV Application Commentary series published by Zondervan. The Mark commentary was written by New Testament scholar David E. Garland. It was published back in 1996 but the work still remains widely relevant. The scholarly […]
I recently had a conversation with an old friend in which we discussed the idea of divine healing. I was surprised at how immediate and negative his response. I asked myself if next time, I need to give a trigger warning before I talk about healing. My experience hints of a larger problem in the […]