A Fresh Perspective

Whenever I engage in conversation with people I meet for the first time I try to avoid being asked the question, “What do you do for a living?” But if I am asked I say, “I am a minister.” Generally, the one who asks then inquires, “What denomination?” or “What kind of church?” Here is where I always have to clarify, depending on the most recent news headline involving Christian leaders: “I am a Baptist minister, but I am not a science-denying Baptist minister who think that dinosaurs lived alongside humans a few thousand years ago.” What a strange irony that a 30-foot-long fossil of an Allosaurus will be on display at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky where Museum founder, Ken Ham, recently debated science educator Bill Nye. Ken Ham and his colleague s think it defends the book of Genesis and supplies evidence of Noah’s flood. Good grief! Unfortunately, this is real life, not a Charlie Brown cartoon. According to a recent survey  by the Associated Press, 77% ...

In order to appropriate this passage appropriately it’s important to note that this passage is set in a larger context of persecution and end-time expectation where Jesus sends out his disciples as sheep among wolves to proclaim the imminent fulfillment of the kingdom of God . The early disciples believed that Jesus would most likely come   within their lifetime to bring an end to this present age and usher in God’s future kingdom. They also believed that the time leading up to that decisive moment would be marked by great suffering and tribulation, particularly from powers opposed to the kingdom. The early Christians inherited this apocalyptic outlook from Palestinian Judaism. They reworked it, of course, in light of their belief in Jesus as Messiah and Lord. Of course, looking back from our point in history we know they were mistaken about the apocalyptic schematics. Still, some of us haven’t learned much from it, because we still cook up these prophetic timetables, even mo...

If you have learned anything from me about interpreting Scripture over the years, I hope you have learned that you can take the stories in the early chapters of Genesis seriously without taking them literally. One does not have to deny science or evolution to take these creation stories seriously. And you don’t even have to be a liberal or a progressive like me to do that, you can be an evangelical, though the statistics don’t fair well for evangelicals. According to a recent survey by the Associated Press, 77% of people who claim to be born again or evangelical say they have little or no confidence that the universe began 13.8 years ago with a big bang. And 76% of evangelicals doubt that life on earth, including human beings, evolved through a process of natural selection. Now, the interesting thing, or rather the sad thing is that evangelical professors in evangelical universities and seminaries know better. Darrel Falk, a biology professor at Point Loma Nazarene Univer...

Over at Dr. James Dobson’s family talk, Ryan Dobson, son of James Dobson, recently wrote a piece seeking to answer the question: Why doesn’t God do a better job protecting us? Why have so many Christians around the world been killed? On the basis of a text in Revelation 6, he argues that “God’s plan for this world calls for a certain number of Christians to be put to death for the sake of Jesus.” Of course, he doesn’t attempt to explain why God would want to have so many of God’s beloved daughters and sons killed.             He writes:  “That’s God’s amazing, mysterious plan. And it’s all part of the good and perfect story He’s written for us, a story that will make Him more famous than ever when we finally see how it all plays out.”             How the brutal and violent deaths of God’s children at the hands of the powers that be can somehow be proclaime...

A common theme in both the passage in Acts and the one in 1 Corinthians is the togetherness and unity of the church that coalesces around the gift of the Spirit. Luke tells us that the disciples who experienced the Spirit in such a dramatic way on the day of Pentecost “were all together in one place.” Paul explains to the Corinthians that while there’s a diversity of gifts and though members have different capacities and abilities, there is one body and one Spirit. This oneness extends beyond social status and nationality: Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – all are made to drink of the one and same Spirit, says Paul. In a society infused with the Spirit there is no patriarchal dominance or favoritism. The Spirit is given to all – sons and daughters, slaves and free, Jews or Greeks – all get baptized in the Spirit. The Spirit breaks down social and cultural barriers and divisions commonly upheld in one’s culture. The Spirit creates a different kind of community. And we kn...

John 17 is set in a context of Jesus praying. Though what follows is framed as a prayer, the instruction of the disciples that began in chapter 13 continues. An important theme in this prayer has to do with the relationship of Jesus’ disciples to the world: v. 6: “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. v. 9: “I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world. v. 11: “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. . . . protect them in your name that you have given me” v. 14: “the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world. v. 15: “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. v. 16: “They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.” v. 18: “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. vv. 22-23: “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that ...