I’m happy to offer a positive review for the relatively recently published book, Engaging Theology: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Introduction, by Ben C. Blackwell and R.L. Hatchett. The formatting of the text is beautiful and easy to follow, the writing is personable, interesting, and accessible, the theology is both deeply orthodox and broadly ecumenical, and I’m confident that this would be a great resource for all those wishing to learn more about the Christian faith – whether for use by church leaders for lay classes or by universities for a variety of undergraduate theology cours ..read more

“What we find when we read the story of the wilderness temptations closely is that Satan is not so much tempting us to disbelieve as to believe unfaithfully. Again and again, he entices Jesus to use God’s word against him, to claim God’s truth in a false way. And the same holds true for our temptations: Satan wants us to take God’s promises to mean what they do not in fact mean, so that we are confused about what we can and should expect from God.  Perhaps that is where we too often find ourselves: believing strongly — but in misunderstandings of God’s word. We trust God as provider, but ..read more

IVP has a new addition to their “A Week in the Life of” series with this new work from James L. Papandrea. A Week in the Life of Rome combines a fictional story with non-fictional aspects taken from both scholarship and biblical texts. To be perfectly honest, I am not usually a fan of historical fictions and was surprised with how much I enjoyed this book (it was quick read for me as I found it to be quite the page-turner). The story largely centers on the many tensions that were part of everyday life for a Christian (or soon to be convert) in the Roman Empire. The patron-client system is ..read more

I have friends on both sides of the “Jordan Peterson” fan-club and the “Jordan Peterson” hate-club. I was recently talking to one of them about the existence, and perhaps inevitability, of hierarchies. I happen to think that much of the biblical texts make little sense outside of a robust ancient hierarchy. I’m less convinced of Peterson’s claim (as far as I call tell) that hierarchies are biological and a little more open to the idea that hierarchies are ontological (or at the very that they served an important intellectual foundation for pre-modern civilization, philosophy, and religion. Tha ..read more

“But we are too easily deceived by our desires – especially by our desires for the transcendence and eternity that determine the ultimate meaning of our lives. The Gospels teach us that many of those who crowded around Jesus, including some of his closest disciples and dearest friends, were drawn to him by false hopes and vain expectations. The hard truth is that we too often find ourselves attracted to what we wrongly think is God. At times, like Simon the Sorcerer, we come seeking God for those powers we find useful, imagining that by professing belief in God we have secured a resource that ..read more

Andrew Louth in “Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology” writes the following about “Universal Salvation” in his last chapter of the book, The last things and eternal life: “There is a deeper reason for Origen’s conviction of final restoration for all: for him it is inconceivable that Christ is to remain in sorrow for all eternity (after commenting on how Christ weeps over his sins as he wept over Jerusalem), on account of the failure of any rational creature to respond to his love and benefit from his sacrifice. Whereas in Western theology, such a conviction rapidly dies out, in Orthodox theol ..read more