The best way, I believe, to examine Jesus’ teaching in the Olivet Discourse is to have the three Synoptic accounts open at the relative sections. This is easy to do digitally but may also be read with three hard copy bibles. I personally never achieved clarity of the account until doing this very technique. No, I am not speaking about the specific timing of the … Continue reading Understanding the Olivet Discourse

I went to schools for my theological training where marginalization of blacks, though outwardly condemned, was justified at least on a personal level. Several students believed  in and justified their racism by appealing to the bible’s account of the sin of Ham and his son Canaan. They identified Ham with the African Continent and said that blacks were cursed to be slaves somehow and they … Continue reading America’s Sin

The well known story of Jesus turning water into wine is found in the second chapter of John. In the account is what I always thought a curious feature: stone water pots for cleansing-Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washing, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. (John 2.6) The rationale of strictly observant Jews (Pharisees and others) is a parenthetical … Continue reading Stone Jars

Originally posted on Ferrell's Travel Blog:
From Tel Megiddo one has a good view of the Jezreel Valley. Our panorama is composed of three photos made from the same spot at Megiddo. The Jezreel Valley lies before us to the north (and slightly east). Nazareth is located in the mountains of lower Galilee. The valley continues east between the Hill of Moreh and Mount… Continue reading The significance of Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley

Originally posted on Larry Hurtado's Blog:
In an essay from 1979 I floated the idea that Paul’s collection-project for Jerusalem may have been used against him by his critics in the Galatian churches:  “The Book of Galatians and the Jerusalem Collection,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 5(1979), pp. 46-62.  In recent weeks, I’ve returned to that essay while reading Bruce Longenecker’s… Continue reading Galatians and Paul’s Jerusalem-Collection Re-visited

During my training for an M.Div (now 40 years ago), my Systematics Professor sought to describe the meaning of “holy” as “otherness” or “out of the ordinary” which conformed with the then-current scholarship. The Hebrew of the biblical text is only consonants and the vowels need to be supplied. The form of the term “holy” is qds or its root: qd. My professor illustrated this … Continue reading The Meaning of “Holy”

By Steffen Mueller The Church in Europe Europe was the birthplace of the Reformation. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted the Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Schlosskirche—the Castle Church—in Wittenberg, Germany. In God’s providence, this became a catalyst for the Reformation that God had been preparing, the Reformation that changed the world. For a long time, Europe was the center of Christian strength … Continue reading The Church in Europe

The ultimate sower of the word was Jesus. Before He embarked on His ministry, all Four Gospels record the Spirit descending on Him in the figure of a dove (Mt.3.16, Mk. 1.10, Lk. 3.22, Jn.1.32). John the Baptist indicated that the Spirit remained on Jesus: Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him … Continue reading Some Thirty, Some Sixty, and Some a Hundredfold

This is a revised post on Health Tips Many people today hold to a form of the ancient teaching of Gnosticism. They believe the soul has great significance while the body is merely a useless vessel to be used or abused. But as Christians we see that there is much greater unity than this. To care for the body is to care for the soul. … Continue reading We are Christians not Gnostics

Tuesday, August 1, 2017, many of the Jewish people recently will observe Tisha B’Av. This phrase, strange to Christians, means the Fast of the Ninth. The observance “is a day of mourning to commemorate the many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people” (Judaism 101). According to this source, five terrible events took place on […] via What do you know about Tisha B’Av? — Ferrell’s … Continue reading First and Second Temple Destruction on Tisha B’Av

Jeremiah gives us a ‘heads up’ of the self-destructive foe inside all of us whether Christian or not:  The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it? (Jer. 17.9) NET For Christians it is not our only foe but probably the one we are the least aware of, hence, Jeremiah’s last clause “who can know it” (as in another translation). The … Continue reading A Feature of an Unseen Enemy

Within proper limits Christians have always used many tools available to them since, in essence, all truth is God’s truth. Not only The Humanities but The Sciences are employed for textual analysis, archeology, and a host of other disciplines to inform us of facts. Christians have always been at the forefront of  legitimate research and were the ones who established most of the research institutions … Continue reading Science is Cool

shows how easy it is to scam scientific journals and get garbage published.  With thanks to James Spinti for the tip. A number of so-called scientific journals have accepted a Star Wars-themed spoof paper. The manuscript is an absurd mess of factual errors, plagiarism and movie quotes. I know because I wrote it. Inspired by previous publishing “stings”, I wanted to test whether ‘predatory‘ journals would publish … Continue reading Imposter Scientific Peer Review