Jesus Creed

Olympic Venues: Check these out

Scot McKnight — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:32:07 +0000

Note to Jesus Creed blog readers: I’ve posted all our posts today by 8am because Patheos is updating its systems. Be patient with any glitches today. Thanks. What happens to the Olympic villages and facilities? This is the story of the colossal waste of money, and lots of it … maybe there should be a [...]

Image of Solar Corona around the Moon

Scot McKnight — Sat, 18 May 2013 09:28:42 +0000

Source:

Saturday Book Review: Teresa Berger

Scot McKnight — Sat, 18 May 2013 08:07:52 +0000

This review comes to us from one of our students at Northern Seminary, Jean Sharp. Book Review of Gender Differences and the Making of Liturgical History: Lifting a Veil on Liturgy’s Past, Teresa Berger In an overly sexualized North American context, it seems quite remarkable that our gendered-bodies could be overlooked. And yet, the disconnection, whether [...]

Weekly Meanderings, May 18, 2013

Scot McKnight — Sat, 18 May 2013 05:17:09 +0000

Is Tiger as intimidating as he once was? Brandel Chamblee says perhaps even more so now: “I’ve listened to critics and even players say that Woods is not as intimidating as he once was, that his aura is gone. Please. No, he’s not the player he was, but he’s as imposing as ever. The numbers tell us [...]

Caffeine Curve

Scot McKnight — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:00:30 +0000

From Mark Stevens:

NZ and Aussie Accents? Check out the USA Accents

Scot McKnight — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:36:26 +0000

From Aschmann’s amazing website: Have you heard those folks in New Orleans? Minnesota? UP? Who has the strongest accent? Got some examples?

From the Shepherd’s Nook: Preaching as Encounter

Scot McKnight — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:02:06 +0000

By John Frye. We should not be surprised how the soterian gospel has reshaped USAmerican evangelical preaching in view of that gospel’s long run. Thousands of individuals, saved on the skimpiest of information shaped to elicit a punctiliar decision, filled the church as uninformed converts. The robust kingdom of God gospel announcement (kerygma) has been [...]

Best Book on Calvinism?

Scot McKnight — Fri, 17 May 2013 05:05:26 +0000

Our recent post about IVP’s new little handbook to all things Reformed convinced me we need to to reconsider together what Calvinism means. I’m not a Calvinist, but Kenneth Stewart is. He’s a very good thinker and a clear writer and he argues there is more than one kind of Calvinism, and many don’t even [...]

Education: An Infographic Comparison

Scot McKnight — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:27:16 +0000

Source: obizmedia.com via NEA on Pinterest

Reaching the Unchurched

Scot McKnight — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:25:48 +0000

Carey Nieuwhof: Many today will want to say “reaching” is the wrong, and unmissional, word; some will say relationships for the sake of evangelism are wrong; yet, there are other questions: Does evangelism matter to you? How does one evangelize those who have little interest? So how do you reach a growing number of people [...]

Creation, Evolution, and US Pastors (RJS)

RJS — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:06:54 +0000

A bit over a year ago BioLogos commissioned a survey conducted by Barna Group to understand the views of clergy on questions of creation and evolution. The results of the survey are now being released by BioLogos and you can see the initial summary from the survey in April edition of their monthly newsletter The [...]

Calvinism and Women

Scot McKnight — Thu, 16 May 2013 05:05:37 +0000

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard a thousand times. Calvinism is a hierarchical system of thought and it is hierarchical in marriage and it is hierarchical in churches. The more one emphasizes God’s sovereignty the more one can emphasize male sovereignty. Therefore, Calvinism is inherently complementarian and that means it will — for those [...]

Beginning of the End?

Scot McKnight — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:29:17 +0000

We have been suggesting that Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare) will become the default or even go-to plan for many businesses, governments or employers … and Chicago’s decision is the beginning of total socialization of medical care in the USA. Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to start reducing health insurance coverage next year for more than 30,000 [...]

A Circle of Significance

Scot McKnight — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:01:48 +0000

Source

Languages: An Infograph

Scot McKnight — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:35:04 +0000

Find more great infographics on NerdGraph Infographics

One and Only One

Scot McKnight — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:09:24 +0000

Three options: first, there are many gods and YHWH, God of Israel, is one among many; second, there are many God but YHWH is superior to all other gods; third, there is one and only one God, and YHWH is that God. Polytheism, henotheism and monotheism, roughly. The dominant theme of the Old Testament is [...]

Reformed and O How I Love to Proclaim It!

Scot McKnight — Wed, 15 May 2013 05:05:49 +0000

While at a conference a young man introduced himself to me, we began to chat, he informed me he was Reformed, and he had a few questions for me. I asked him what kind of Reformed, and he wasn’t all that sure what that meant, so I asked it concretely: Presbyterian? No. CRC? No (he [...]

Women of the Wall

Scot McKnight — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:43:40 +0000

From Edmund Sanders: JERUSALEM — Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews flooded into the Old City’s Western Wall Plaza early Friday in a boisterous and sometimes violent protest against a group of female activists exercising a newly court-affirmed right to pray at the holy site in a similar fashion as men do. It was a rare scene [...]

Bible Translation Controversy Over

Scot McKnight — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:51:21 +0000

From SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), an announcement about translating the Bible in Muslim countries were divine familial terms require special translation sensitivities and accuracies: SIL International has received ten recommendations from the WEA Global Review Panel for translation of Divine Familial Terms. Recommendations one through four are cited here as the standards that SIL [...]

Skepticism and (Not Needing) The Last Word (RJS)

RJS — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:30:04 +0000

As most are aware by this time, Dallas Willard passed away last Wednesday. Dallas Willard was a Professor of Philosophy at USC, The University of Southern California, for 47 years. He began as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy in 1965 and moved through the ranks from assistant to associate to full professor. He retired last [...]

A North American Approach?

Scot McKnight — Tue, 14 May 2013 05:05:32 +0000

Joel Willitts, in his essay on empire criticism and the Gospel of Matthew, sets out a most incisive observation: “It appears that the fascination with Matthew and empire is a distinctively North American phenomenon, however.” He pushes harder: “I found no continental or British scholars who either have paid much notice to Carter’s [American's foremost [...]

Happy (Belated) Birthday Kierkegaard

Scot McKnight — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:42:46 +0000

From Julian Baggini, on Kierkegaard’s 200th birthday (May 5) and his continuing appeal: Discovering that your childhood idols are now virtually ancient is usually a disturbing reminder of your own mortality. But for me, realising that 5th May 2013 marks the 200th anniversary of Søren Kierkegaard’s birth was more of a reminder of his immortality. [...]

Russell Moore on Christians and Politics

Scot McKnight — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:37:08 +0000

From Out of Ur: Christians seem to swing the pendulum between pietistic disengagement and hard-boiled partisan politics. Should pastors and church leaders advocate a third way? The church of Jesus Christ isn’t a political action committee, affixing Bible verses to already-existing political programs. The church is a colony of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. That [...]

Myths about Education

Scot McKnight — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:49:58 +0000

An Infographic by Open Colleges

Where Christian Theology — All of It — Begins

Scot McKnight — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:08:50 +0000

In the beginning was the gospel (lower case “gospel”) so that all early Christian teaching was measured by the gospel, but the gospel was known through the apostolic testimony, and the apostolic testimony was known through the writings of the apostles (once they died), leading to this: all Christian theology begins with Scripture. We can finesse [...]

First Century Slippery Slope

Scot McKnight — Mon, 13 May 2013 05:05:12 +0000

We have to fill in the lines but there appears to be a fairly common 1st Century slippery slope: If you compromise on this one, you’ll end up inviting the likes of Antiochus Epiphanes back into Jerusalem. The story is well-known and sketched well by Warren Carter in his Seven Events that Shaped the New Testament [...]

Speak, Blue Parakeet, Speak

Scot McKnight — Sun, 12 May 2013 20:02:56 +0000

What Will You Permit Me to Do?

Scot McKnight — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:08:38 +0000

From Suzanne Burden, an almost grad from seminary: I will graduate on May 11, mere days from now. God willing, I will soon possess a diploma that says M.A. in Theological Studies. I took the scenic, part-time, pay-as-you-go route through seminary, so this has been a four-year project. Which is why so many are recently asking: [...]

Paul the Mystic

Scot McKnight — Sun, 12 May 2013 17:07:34 +0000

Some over do it and some under do it, but the fact is that the apostle Paul — here speaking of himself indirectly — was nothing short of a mystic: 2Cor. 12:2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body [...]

Happy Mother’s Day

Scot McKnight — Sun, 12 May 2013 10:26:06 +0000

Kris and I want to wish all the mothers who read this blog a robust Happy Mother’s Day! Whatever you call your mom — and here’s a good listing — wish her a happy Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s day Mom, and this is our first Mother’s Day without Kris’ mom, Betty, and we will fill [...]

Seventh Sunday after Easter

Scot McKnight — Sun, 12 May 2013 05:12:17 +0000

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you [...]

Eat Slowly

Scot McKnight — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:48:28 +0000

So says Brian St Pierre: When you eat slowly, you digest better. You lose or maintain weight more easily. Yet you also feel more satisfied with each meal. Conversely, if you rush your meals, your digestion suffers. Meals are stressful. And it might seem like each meal is over too soon, which often makes you [...]

On Friendship: Three Kinds

Scot McKnight — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:52:15 +0000

From Ron Belgau, at First Things: In his treatise On Spiritual Friendship, Aelred of Rievaulx, a 12th-century Cistercian abbot, insists that we need to test our beliefs about friendship with Scripture. The treatise is a series of dialogues in which three monks join Aelred to examine their ideas about friendship in light of their Christian faith. One [...]

Saturday Book Review: Lee and Fredrickson

Scot McKnight — Sat, 11 May 2013 14:20:16 +0000

This review comes to us from Mark Stevens, Adelaide Australia. Brian Fulthorp posted some very sobering statistics on Blue Chip Pastor recently which grabbed my attention. Did you know that, “According to studies by the Alban Institute and Fuller Seminary, 50% of ministers drop out of ministry within the first five years and many never [...]

Weekly Meanderings, May 11, 2013

Scot McKnight — Sat, 11 May 2013 05:09:58 +0000

I’m shifting how Weekly Meanderings are done. First, not as many links; second, no division between blogs and news. Third, some of what would be in the Meanderings will appear over the weekend. Enjoy… and send links our way when you see something that you know will fit our audience. As always, a big hug [...]

Just in case you need evidence about sports

Scot McKnight — Fri, 10 May 2013 18:41:09 +0000

Source: Deadspin

Forming Children, Forming Young Adults

Scot McKnight — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:11:18 +0000

From Tim Elmore: I believe two sets of messages must be communicated to students during the first two decades of their life. Sadly, very often only one set of messages gets through. The first ten years, we must communicate childhood messages. If we have done this well, they are prepared for necessary adolescent messages that [...]

Women in Ministry: One Week Intensive

Scot McKnight — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:54:11 +0000

This summer at Northern Seminary I will teach a public-open course on Women in Ministry. Here is a list of our summer offerings, and my course on Women in Ministry will be taught June 17-21. Here’s the official edu-scoop: Women in Ministry will focus on understanding, recognizing and encouraging the gifts God has given to [...]

Why don’t we play well?

Scot McKnight — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:45:14 +0000

Tyler Braun, asking why Christians don’t play well with one another: So how can we turn this around? What do we need to do in order to disagree with our brothers and sisters in love? First, we need to understand that the underlying theme that allows for disagreement to happen in a healthy way is [...]

From the Shepherd’s Nook (John Frye)

Scot McKnight — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:16:54 +0000

Word Craft, by John Frye Years ago I might have titled this post “Personal Precise Pastoral Ponderings on Preaching,” thinking, “That’s cool and catchy.” Those days are long gone. Scot McKnight suggested that I create some posts on the preparation for and ministry of preaching. I responded, “Scot, I have mixed feelings about the topic.” [...]

The Ascension

Scot McKnight — Fri, 10 May 2013 05:04:24 +0000

This Sunday in the church calendar is Ascension Sunday (the official Ascension was yesterday, May 9). The foundational text, though not in the lectionary for Sunday, is found in Acts 1:4-11. What themes do you think we are to focus on in light of the Ascension of Christ? Why do you think we ignore Ascension? [...]

Fitch Talking Hockey, SMcK Bored

Scot McKnight — Fri, 10 May 2013 01:20:42 +0000

David Fitch, my friend and colleague at Northern Seminary, in DC, asked to speak about Missio Alliance but instead…. … he starts talking about hockey and Max and hockey and … well… one-third of the way into the talk he starts talking theology. Hockey, so I hear, a game for winter on ice is still [...]

Are you a daydream believer?

Scot McKnight — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:01:11 +0000

From The Big Questions: But is that really the best way to solve problems and improve your mind? Not necessarily, according to social scientists who have been studying this question in recent years. While researchers have found new support for the old Victorian practices, they’ve also discovered evidence for the benefits of daydreaming. This activity, [...]

Church for those 40+

Scot McKnight — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:54:32 +0000

Michelle van Loon has done a survey of why 40+ leave local churches or diminish their participation, and in her study she wonders if maybe churches have focused so much on -40 that those 40+ are outside the framework. What do you think? Do churches neglect the spiritual formative needs of the 40+? However, the [...]

A Miraculous Creation (RJS)

RJS — Thu, 09 May 2013 10:15:50 +0000

No matter how we look at it the question of miracles is a key one as we consider faith, worldview and science. Certainly I have been asked many times on this blog how I can dismiss a miraculous creation (I don’t – but we’ll get to that), yet accept (apparently arbitrarily) the miracles performed by [...]

What’s a Man, What’s a Woman?

Scot McKnight — Thu, 09 May 2013 05:07:02 +0000

Christians are deeply vested in this double question. Complementarians are essentialists who think there are distinctive, essential differences between a man and woman, while egalitarians (the right term in this discussion) are not essentialists in that they think the differences are nurture and not nature. But this raises the double question: So what is a [...]

Dallas, We Love You

Scot McKnight — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:54:56 +0000

A person who has influenced many of us, Dallas Willard, has passed away from cancer. I met Dallas only once at a Renovare conference and it has a special memory for both Kris and me. I told him his voice sounded like Johnny Wooden and he smiled and nodded, so I said, “Do you know [...]

PK’s and Parental Pressure

Scot McKnight — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:27:54 +0000

The pressure can be intended and it can be unintended, but it is not uncommon for children to feel the need to break the mold as they individuate. Pastor’s kids (PK’s) are a good example. How do you church leaders deal with this? Beneath the stereotypes of preacher’s kids as either goody two-shoes or devilish [...]

How to Write a Story

Scot McKnight — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:56:26 +0000

Source: the-cma.com via Larry on Pinterest From Larry Ferlazzo

The Case for Christian Doctrine

Scot McKnight — Wed, 08 May 2013 10:02:24 +0000

One of my favorite Christians of all time is Charles Sheldon, the one who lived his life and led his ministry with one simple question: “What would Jesus do?” His novel of that title has sold millions of copies, it’s not a great book — but Sheldon himself transcended his quaint, even sentimental novels. Perhaps [...]