A question has challenged the human conscience for two thousand years: «How are we to explain the presence of Jesus Christ in this world?» Or who, indeed, was Jesus Christ? A man like the rest of men? Or was he a divine Person? Why was it that well-practiced soldiers who failed to fulfill their commission to arrest him said: «Never man spoke like this man?» The early church confirmed the apostles' declaration that Jesus Christ was the etern ...
In an era when the cult of personality has overtaken the task of preaching, Charles W. Fuller offers an engaging query into the necessary boundaries between the person of the preacher and the message preached. By thoroughly evaluating Phillips Brooks's classic «truth through personality» definition of preaching, Fuller brings to light a substantial error that remains in contemporary homiletics: namely, the tenuous correlation between Christ ...
Too much communication in the world of religion is one-way: from clergy to lay persons who, if ever respectfully engaged, would become serious inquirers. The most desirable means of effective engagement is the give-and-take method of eliciting and clarifying questions and then drawing the questioner into the answering process. That, combined with the intellectual rigor of Enlightenment thinking in the formation of beliefs, will go a long way tow ...
The role of the Holy Spirit in the writing of Scripture and the role of the Holy Spirit in the understanding of Scripture are corollary ideas. The first one of these–usually referred to as the Inspiration of Scripture–has been extensively discussed by the Early Church Fathers, theologians, and other Bible scholars from the earliest centuries of the Church until the present. Likewise, the second of these corollary ideas–the role of the Holy Spiri ...
Throughout the centuries churches all over the world have confessed their faith in the words of The Apostle's Creed. The Creed is a brilliant summary of the essence of biblical truth. But, as this book shows, the Creed is not just a dry statement of abstract doctrines. It is an expression of passion. As they composed the Creed, the earliest Christians were giving voice to their passion for the God who has made himself known in the person of ...
We are in the midst of a rapidly changing sexual scene. Casual sex between consenting adults scarcely gets a second look, marriage is increasingly viewed as an at-will contract, attitudes toward same-sex relationships have done an about-face, and the family has been redefined in ways that challenge how we effectively minister to those inside and the church. If we as believers value our call to be the salt and light of society, then we must begin ...
Logizomai is the Greek word meaning «to reckon,» or «to reason.» The Apostle John identifies Jesus as the «Logos» (John 1:1, 14)-the Divine Word. To most Christians in the West today, Christianity is nothing more than a duty, a feeling, a name badge, or something one does on Sunday's. But Christianity is more than that. Christianity is a complete worldview that makes sense of the world. A right theology results in a right understanding of t ...
How are we to understand the freedom for which Christ has set us free (Gal 5:1)? Could it be that we have barely glimpsed what this might mean? Most theological accounts of freedom frame the discussion in terms of heteronomy or autonomy. In the Protestant tradition, Calvinists are known for championing the former and Arminians are credited with advocating the latter. More recently, open theists, in significantly modifying the Arminian paradigm, ...
How we understand God's future purposes for the world must shape, to a significant degree, how Christians live life in the present. The decades since the publication of Hal Lindsey's, The Late Great Planet Earth, have seen a great deal of «end-times» speculation. Signs of the end-time apocalypse occurring soon have been heralded across our radios, televisions, the internet, and through written forms of media, urging people to either be ...
