Maybe I have just missed it, but I don’t recall ever hearing a Calvinist preach on Luke 15, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. And that makes sense since it seems like the most counter-Calvin parable of them all: I think the last point should be the most troubling for the Calvinist. They are the ones who say, “Dead means dead, and a dead man can do nothing” – as a proof for total depravity requiring unconditional election.  But here the Father uses the deadness metaphor with a single clear meaning:  Deadness and Lostness = Separation from the Father. The…

This Sunday I am preaching on Luke 10 where Jesus sends 72 disciples out to proclaim, “The Kingdom of God is near”. I went back to Luke 9 to make sure I understood the context and – wow – there’s a lot going on in chapter 9. And most of it casts the disciples in a very poor light. Here’s what they get right: But otherwise, their record throughout chapter 9 is dismal: Do these not parallel some of the worst tendencies of the modern American church? And yet, there is Jesus at the start of Luke 10 again sending…

What if the traditional assumptions are wrong? I hope you find the following question intriguing rather than controversial: Could it be that the real author of the Gospel of John – known only as the “Beloved Disciple” in the text – is not John, the son of Zebedee, as traditionally assumed – but instead Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, whom Jesus raised from the dead? This possibility has been proposed by Dr. Ben Witherington III, a well-respected New Testament scholar and author who teaches at my alma mater, Asbury Theological Seminary. It seems a strange theory at first,…

This is a follow up to yesterday’s post about author Dennis McKinsey and his apparent obsession with proving the Bible to be full of errors. While I was on his Amazon page for his masterpiece The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy, curiosity drove me to read some of the reviews.  I discovered that McKinsey’s audience is happy to consume what he is feeding them. Lots of 5 star reviews! Below you will find a review fairly representative of McKinsey’s readers and their impressive analytical skills. (I found it equal parts hilarious, tragic, and frustrating.) [McKinsey] shows that the Bible is so…

As I was doing some research for my sermon today, I came across a quote from an author I had never heard of: Dennis McKinsey. Apparently McKinsey has made a career out of criticizing the Bible. Over the last several decades he has maintained some sort of journal on “Biblical Errancy” and produced an “encyclopedia” filled with all the mistakes he has located in the Scriptures.  But the snippet I read from McKinsey was rather unimpressive for a self-professed “scholar” of the Bible. It was in regard to Paul making his farewell speech to the Ephesians in Acts 20 which…

There are so many great books out there with useful teaching about prayer, but if you are looking to grow in your prayer life, today I offer a simple but life-changing approach to prayer that has impacted my spiritual life immensely over the last 4 months. (And I am just getting started!) And it is straightforward: If you truly want to learn how to pray, do what the disciples did and ask Jesus Himself to teach you. (Luke 11:1-4) So each day I make this request of God: “Lord, teach me to pray”. And then I listen as closely as…

In his book Reframe Your Brain, Scott Adams talks about how it is often possible to change your actions and habits simply by reframing your reality. For example, he speaks of giving up alcohol by moving from the familiar frame of “Alcohol is a beverage to enjoy” to a new frame of “Alcohol is poison”.  Over time, by identifying alcohol in his own mind with something as negative as poison, Adams simply lost interest in drinking.  Throughout the book, he suggests various reframes to combat common life challenges, but he says the real power is in finding your own. They…