In Defense of the Faith
Apologetic Ministry

A PLACE OF MERCY

When I was just out of high school, I heard a Christian pro-life advocate arguing against abortion on the radio. Interestingly, in order to illustrate the tragic irony of abortion, he pointed out that the Hebrew word for womb (racham) is derived from the word for mercy (râcham). The place that is supposed to be a place of mercy for a helpless child is a place where he can be brutally murdered at the consent of his mother. One can easily imagine how the Hebrew mind formed a link between the womb and mercy. When a person is deeply moved to compassion she feels it in her stomach (where the womb is, if I may be less than precise). The unborn child rests within the mercy of her mother, and all of us who have had a mother know that she always holds us there.

The more one studies the Scriptures (especially if you know Hebrew), the more one realizes that God loves puns (maybe that’s where our earthly fathers get it) and He loves mixed metaphors. For that reason, it would be short-sited to imagine that this is the only way that mercy and the womb are linked in the mind of God. A while back, as I was reading through Proverbs, I realized another link between the words. Proverbs 30:15-16 says, “Three things are never satisfied; four never say, ‘Enough’: Sheol, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, ‘Enough.’” What do all four of those things have in common? They are all four results of curse or judgment. Sheol = hell, that one’s obvious. A drought stricken land=cursed land (Deut 28:22). Similarly, the barren womb is also a sign of curse (Deut 28:18).

Now, that is not to say that everyone who is barren is cursed in particular by God (all you have to do is read the Bible and see how many of the women that God favored were barren). A person with a barren womb is, however, cursed in the same sense that all creation has been groaning under a curse since Adam’s rebellion (Rom 8:19-23). When God made mankind, He blessed them by making them fruitful (Gen 1:28). The world was not meant to have barren wombs. The result of Adam’s sin, however, was death to all mankind (Romans 5:12). Surprisingly, God did not kill Adam and Eve (physically) on the day they ate the fruit, as He indicated (Gen 2:17). More surprisingly, even in the midst of judging Adam and Eve, God promised life to them, “I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). He not only was going to let them live for many more years, but He gave Eve a living womb to produce more children. Outside of the garden, Eve praised God, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD” (Gen 4:1).

That brings us back full circle. Because of the fall, barren wombs are what the world deserves, because we sinned in Adam. When God allowed Eve to be fruitful, it was mercy. So, that, it seems to me, is another connection between the Hebrew words. Every fruitful womb is a sign that God is merciful to mankind, providing life in the midst of sin.

MERCY DECAPITATED AND THROWN IN THE TRASH

Viewing the connection between racham (womb) and râcham (mercy), in that manner strengthens the pro-life case. Many times, we will say things like, “If a woman can choose to have sex she needs to accept the consequences and take care of the baby.” This is true enough, but I am afraid that sometimes people hear, “God has punished your sin by giving you a baby, and now you need to willingly take your punishment.” The reality is much different.

As Christians we know, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). We sin very often and God should strike us dead the first time we ever sin and every time since. So, when a couple of college students sin by having sex outside of marriage, God would be just to strike them dead immediately. Instead, He mercifully lets them live. What is more ridiculously gracious, is that sometimes He gives life to her womb. Instead of killing her, or simply letting her live, God gives her a son or daughter who is made in their (and His) image. That is mercy. Obviously, she has put herself in a position where God’s grace looks like punishment, but life is full of such contradictions. If she would only value that child, there is no telling what kind of work God might do in her life. Perhaps she might see that she had made an idol out of the freedom she had as a young person, and she would grow to love to give herself for others. Perhaps, God might open her eyes to see the glory of the Son of God given for sinners.

The horror of abortion, is that two people have received a token of God’s mercy toward them in the form of a baby. The young lady goes to a “clinic” to destroy God’s merciful gift. A doctor slices or boils in chemicals this gift and sucks him out with a vacuum.

Thankfully, many women repent and are forgiven after abortions. But can you imagine standing before the Lord, having thrown away His mercy? As much as I hate to do this kind of thing. . .

Picture a young man who pressured his girlfriend to have an abortion standing before the risen Lord at the resurrection of the unjust. The young man is on his knees, begging that Jesus would not send him to the lake of fire, “Lord, have mercy. Please do not throw me into that place of destruction and darkness.” Jesus says, “I have been merciful to you your whole life and you never responded. Not only that, but I mercifully gave you a daughter. I provided offspring for you, and you rejected my mercy. You went out of your way—taking off from work—to make sure that your girlfriend killed my mercy. Therefore, I will cast you into destruction, just as you payed to destroy that little one.” On the day of judgment, Christ will not be merciful to those who have been unmerciful toward an innocent child—a child who is herself a gift of mercy.

In part 2, I will address how being truly pro-life means treating God’s gift of children as mercy rather than embracing the curse of an unfruitful womb.

Amazon Link: The Modern Search for the Real Jesus

Summary

The Modern Search for the Real Jesus is an introductory survey of the historical roots of “Gospels Criticism,” as it has been done since the enlightenment. The book is written by Robert B. Strimple. The basic outline of the book starts in the 18th century and develops the first stages of Gospels Criticism, which has come to be known as the “Old Quest” for the historical Jesus. This quest was basically terminated with the likes of Albert Schweitzer and some rationalist critics who saw the “Old Quest” as fundamentally flawed in its approach to the historical nature of the Gospels themselves. Then, finally in the 20th century, Rudolf Bultmann appeared and gave a ‘watershed’ theory that would ultimately result in a “New Quest” for the historical Jesus. If I could summarize the book into funny categories, I would divide Strimple’s history of ‘Modern’ Gospels Criticism into these three basic categories: 1) Finding your own personal Jesus, 2) Burning everyone’s Personal Jesus, and 3) Solo Fide (Only Faith) – Jesus doesn’t matter anymore. Yes, that is how I felt after I read through the book and processed the basic thought patterns of each transformation of Gospels Criticism. Ultimately, instead of trying to summarize what each person said and thought, the most important thing to understand about Gospels Criticism is that everyone basically subscribed to three principles of history: 1) Any historical work can never be sure, it is only ‘probable’ that something happened, 2) If we cannot see it duplicated today, then it never could have happened in the past (i.e. – no miracles, resurrections, etc.), and 3) Every effect has to have a sufficient cause. Given these three principles, it should become clear that any ‘divine’ activity is strictly prohibited from being ‘known’ in history.

Positives

The full worth of this book should be seen in the comprehensive understanding that is given to every figure addressed throughout the book. Each person’s primary methodology in Gospels Criticism is clearly explained with the practical implications laid out for each. I especially enjoyed all the comments by Strimple throughout the book that he set in parentheses (). It became clear, after reading the first two parts of the book, why Strimple divided the various critics into the areas noted above. The “Old Quest” really was obsessed with creating Jesus in their own personal image. Then the “Old Quest” ended in flames with the old critics being called on the carpet for making Jesus in their own image. Finally, the last portion of the book, resolved the events of the burning of the old quest by showing how Bultmann and his disciples embraced the fruits of rationalistic historical criticism – since you really cannot know anything about the ‘historical’ Jesus, a radical faith (without Jesus) is the only real means of finding personal fulfillment in studying the Gospel writings.

One of the more helpful aspects of understanding the “Old Quest” is what Strimple calls their ‘apologetic’ purpose. The very first two critics Strimple mentions saw themselves as apologists for Christianity given the new era of rationalistic enlightenment. In their sincerity, they saw themselves as making Christianity palatable for a modern person who didn’t know what to do with all the miracles and faith claims of the Bible. But this of course lead these early critics to deny the very heart of the good news of Jesus – that he not only died for sins but that he was resurrected from the dead and lives today in heaven, at the right hand of God, saving people from Satan, death, and sin through the work of his Spirit. That is where the liberal critics step in. Knowing that most of the things that were important to historic, orthodox Christians were now gutted from the Gospel accounts, these liberal critics sought to reconstruct Jesus into a ‘real’ historical figure that people could actually appreciate and follow after – since after all, everyone knows that Jesus had to be a great guy – even though his followers added all that non-historical data to his life in the Gospel accounts. But in the end, they only made Jesus look like themselves (i.e. – a deist, a Hegelian, or a liberal protestant) Strimple, in effect, captures the heart of each Gospels critic as he traces their work through to their ultimate conclusions. This leads us to the last two sections of the book.

Strimple very clearly lays out the downfall of the “Old Quest” by means of the skeptical “radical” critics and the climactic work of Albert Schweitzer. Thus, the downfall of the “Old Quest” can be categorized by two claims from the ‘fire-starters’ noted above: 1) The Gospels were heavily influenced by followers of Jesus, so much so that they are primarily theological works, not historical work. 2) The “Old Quest” critics ended up reconstructing the life of Jesus to look a lot like their own worldviews, which was essentially the same thing the “Old Questers” were accusing the Gospel writers of doing to Jesus! This second claim is one of the only positive things that Albert Schweitzer gave to the history of Gospels Criticism.

Finally, in the last portion of the book, Strimple gives us a very helpful picture of the Bultmann’s thinking and how he and his disciples proceeded to embrace the ultimate futility of the modern Gospels Criticism movement. First, I would like to note the partial ‘breath of fresh air’ that I experienced when reading the sixth chapter on Martin Kähler, the supposed forerunner to Bultmann. Kähler’s work, while not affirming the inerrancy of Scripture, seemed to be thoroughly affirming of orthodox Christian doctrine and faith. But, in the end, his impact on Gospels Criticism was not revival. It was instead food for thought that pushed Bultmann to the conclusions that he drew. Strimple strongly presents the ultimate foolishness of Bultmann’s existential and a-historical conclusions about the Jesus of history. Recalling my third section title in the summary above, Bultmann basically proposed that faith is the only means for a person to be justified in seeking out a life of ‘authentic existence.’ This is the concept of ‘solo’ fide – only faith – where Bultmann concluded that knowing the history of Jesus didn’t matter. Instead, what the Gospel writers were trying to accomplish was to show their reads how to live a truly authentic life. And that authentic life could come in any form, not just Christian religion. Thus, it was the ‘left-wing’ disciples of Bultmann who really ‘got it’ and carried out Bultmann’s conclusions to their ultimate end – ‘who cares about Jesus anymore, we just want an authentic existence!’

Negatives

I found only two negatives in this survey of Modern Gospels Criticism: 1) Strimple did not always connect the three parts together very clearly as he structured the book into chapters. Yes, he made it clear why he segregated the book into the three parts, but as I read, the information was sometimes so much that I did not always track with who came first and why someone influenced another person. It might just be the case that undertaking any such survey like this is always prone to that weakness. 2) Though I attribute this second issue to when Strimple wrote the book, I would have liked to have seen a fourth section covering what has more recently been called the “Third Quest” for the historical Jesus. The book dates itself by not addressing anything beyond what has taken place directly after Bultmann.

Conclusion

The Modern Search for the Real Jesus is a short, yet comprehensive, book that will accurately introduce a well read student of the Bible to the historical roots of Gospels Criticism. I say ‘well read’ because the book contains several references to the German language and also deals with fine distinctions and critical methodology. This book is primarily going to benefit someone seeking to be a pastor or Bible scholar, both of whom will run into these methods and conclusions in much of the scholarly commentary work done on the Gospels today.

Amazon Link: Mark as Story by David Rhoads

Summary

The primary purpose of the book, Mark as Story, by Rhoads, Dewey, and Michie, is to give a full introduction to reading the Gospel of Mark as Narrative or Story. This means that one should not first of all read mark as “history.” Instead, the authors recommend that the Gospel of Mark should be read (1) independently of other Gospel accounts, (2) while avoiding modern cultural assumptions, and (3) without reading in modern theological conclusions such as systematic formulas of the Trinity or Jesus’ Hypostatic Union. A full translation of the text of Mark is also provided in the book with particular emphasis on word and phase repetition, even to the point of maintaining the Greek word order where proper English allows. But the “bread and butter” of this book is contained in the literary analysis of the entire Gospel. In subsequent chapters to the translation, the authors provide detailed outlines and examples of how to understand the Gospel’s (1) Narrator, (2) the Cultural and Geographical Settings, (3) the Plot Lines, and (4) the Characters – such as Jesus, the Judean Leaders, and the Disciples of Jesus. Lastly, Mark as Story concludes with an afterword and two helpful appendixes. The afterword addresses how to read the Gospel of Mark with integrity, seeking to let the story of Jesus have its way with us and “work its magic” by using our imagination to read the story the way it was originally intended to be read by the first century audiences. The two appendixes are there for the more serious study of the Gospel, providing the reader with the proper tools and directions of what to look for when reading and re-reading the Gospel with several different questions and analysis points in mind.

Areas of Agreement

Keeping in mind that the authors of Mark as Story only intended this book to be a literary or narrative explanation of the Gospel of Mark, the reader must not misconstrue the fact that the Gospel of Mark contains accurate historical information about the first century, Jesus, and Jesus’ followers and enemies. The lack of historical analysis of Mark’s Gospel in Mark as Story is appropriate in the fact that the authors’ stated intentions were not to address this Gospel as “history.” Therefore, if one reads this book with the understanding that the authors are not denying the historical data that is found within the Gospel of Mark – let the reader understand – this book might be extremely helpful to the more conservative or evangelical reader.

In the literary analysis of Mark’s Gospel, multiple key subjects are highlighted and brought to the table by the authors: (1) the coming of God’s rule/kingdom, (2) the persecution that is associated with following God’s way, and (3) the work of Jesus to restore and change the way things are in world. These, along with other similar theological conclusions, are to be commended in the authors of Mark as Story. The general structure of Mark’s Gospel tells the story of God’s in-breaking rule and kingdom through the coming of Jesus and the persecution and rejection that is bound to follow those who seek after God’s way. This is something that other scholars have called inaugurated eschatology. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection inaugurate both the Kingdom of God and the Great Tribulation that was spoken of in the Old Testament Scriptures. By following the literary analysis provided in Mark as Story, one will come to a much deeper understanding of how important it was to the first century Christians who read or heard the Gospel of Mark while they were facing the wicked persecution of the Roman Empire in the mid to late decade of 60 A.D. It is with this clear structure that much of the Gospel of Mark can be cogently understood and read in its proper first century context.

A final and strong area of agreement is the fact that all Christians need to understand the literary side of Mark’s Gospel in order to better perceive the lessons and meanings that Mark intended his readers to receive as they read his Gospel account. By learning to read and understand plot lines, narrator functions, and cultural and geographical settings, the reader of Mark’s Gospel will have the ability to pick up on and imagine themselves in the story of Jesus as he brings God’s rule into this world and encourages all his followers to tell about God’s rule where they live and work. And while character analysis is an important feature of this Gospel, it is the conclusion of this reviewer that holding only to a literary reading of Mark’s Gospel will ultimately leave several character traits lacking, especially in the person and work of Jesus. This will be addressed in the next section that follows.

Areas of Disagreement

Many things could be said about the translation of Mark’s Gospel in Mark as Story, but an area of disagreement needs to be pointed out. Translating Mark in a word-for-word fashion is not the most effective way of getting the story of Mark across to the interpreter of Mark. Though this reviewer understands why the authors translated in this fashion, the overall translation was harder to follow in many areas given that Greek word order (which was emphasized in the translation) is non-existent for first century Greek grammar, especially as it relates to English grammar which demands word order for comprehension. But this is a minor disagreement and the translation can stand for the purposes of the authors’ literary analysis in bringing to light various patterns and repetitions in the Gospel of Mark.

Getting back to the Character analysis provided by the authors of Mark as Story, this reviewer cannot help but express his primary and strong disagreement and reservations with how certain aspects of Jesus’ character were described in the second to last chapter of the book. This is where a historical reading of the Gospel, along with a first century Christian understanding of Christology and Soteriology must be understood while reading Mark’s Gospel. Even though the authors believe that a literary analysis should exclude reading Mark as “history,” they do affirm the need for some cultural background to be understood in terms of Mark’s audience in the first century. Unfortunately, this is where several off-handed remarks are made by the authors of Mark as Story. For example, while it must be agreed that the Gospel of Mark does not need to address every theological meaning of Christ’s death, one cannot conclude with the character analysis that because “Jesus [was] already pardoning sin” that “his death is not needed to make forgiveness possible.” And later, in the same section, they conclude that Jesus’ statement about his “blood of the covenant” is not about sacrifice for sin, but merely a covenant sacrificial idea. But this assumes, once again, a certain view of modern theological interpretation that the authors of Mark as Story have so glaringly warned against. The first century Christian audiences would have had much more information about Christian theology than the authors of Mark as Story are willing to admit. While more examples could be given, this should stand as an adequate example of the types of problems that occur in the character analysis portion of the book.

Conclusion

Mark as Story is a valuable literary reading of Mark’s Gospel and should be commended to those seeking to study the Gospel of Mark in a deeper way with proper literary hermeneutical guidelines. While looking out for the areas of disagreement, much can be gained from both the translation and the literary analysis of the Narrator, Setting, Plot, and Characters provided in the book, Mark as Story.

More videos can be found here: Café Apocalypsis

My firstborn son was born a few weeks ago, surprisingly early. This experience was not quite what I expected. Everyone talked about how I would experience new categories of emotions that I had not known before. That was true enough. Meeting him for the first time was amazing, but soon it became hard to believe how he had actually come into the world or that he was ours. It almost felt the same as before he was here, but someone had handed us a baby to feed. I loved him, but it was not an overwhelming feeling. That feeling intensified and I expect it to keep intensifying.

I did not think that having a child would be that type of change, however. You see, there are certain changes that you grow into. One day someone says that you are husband and wife, and then the next day you are really happy, but things feel strangely normal. Then several months down the road you start to learn what it means to be married. Fifty years go by (I imagine) and then the change that happened at the altar has grown so big that it could push the earth off its axis if those bonds were ever to break. I did not think I would have to grow into being a parent.

That is the way things are, however, and it amazes me. My boy fit in just fine, even though he completely interrupted our schedules. It is slowly sinking in that there is another person in the room who is more than just an extension of ourselves.

Today I suddenly realized something else. Time makes the change grow, but so do trials. I really felt like a husband when our actual income did not match our expectations. I know that people who go through a rough few years in their marriage, come out the other side (assuming they persevere) really thankful for each other. When it looked like their might be serious issues with “Lil’ Bit,” we felt the change that had taken place a few days earlier and it was all of a sudden a crushing weight.

Then it hit me. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2,3). I had realized for a while that being a Christian was probably the slow-growing type of change too. The New Testament has so much to say about perseverance (and many Evangelical churches miss that emphasis). A person’s faith is proven to be genuine if it lasts, if they persevere. They do not simply have to hold onto Christ for a long time, however, but they must endure trials along the way. That faith deepens, their joy increases, and their loyalty becomes more unshakable as they walk through the shadow of death. That is why older Christians have so much wisdom. Even if their theology is deficient (Lord be merciful to me), they have suffered with Christ and they have lived with him for a long time. The change that happened at their conversion has grown and the savior is real to them in a way that cannot be comprehended by a person as young as I.

When I was even younger and was operating under a paradigm that drove me to frequent doubts about my salvation, I always wondered why one of the marks of a believer was the presence of the Spirit inside them. I could pretend to be Pentecostal and imagine I was hearing something if I got really quiet, but I knew that would be a lot of jive. “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom 8:16). I asked myself over and over, “Where is the Spirit? If He is supposed to bear witness with my Spirit then I am in trouble, because I feel pretty much like I am alone in here.”

Dr. Russell Moore has some helpful things to say about this verse in Adopted for Life. He points out that the witness that His Spirit communicates to ours occurs as we persevere through trials (see 8:17). It communicates to us as we desperately cry to God, as infants, “Abba, help me,” (as in verse 15). So, the Spirit does communicate with ours over time. Our confidence grows as He gives us grace to persevere. But then trials come and we really feel that He is witnessing to us. So check it out, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5). Those old Christians really can feel their hearts overflowing with God’s love, because the presence of the Spirit has grown through time and trials.

This brings me to the issue of baptism. When I read the Scriptures, I have a hard time getting around the conclusion that baptism is the normative (although God is not bound) means of receiving the Holy Spirit. Just read the book of Acts; the apostles need the sign of tongues to let them know that different groups have been given the Holy Spirit in Christ, but otherwise they seem to expect the Spirit to be poured out just as surely as the water is poured out. And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

This greatly conflicted with my experience of having a personal relationship with Christ when I was a teenager but not getting baptized until I was 18. I did not feel any different when I came out of the water, but I knew that the Holy Spirit had been struggling with me for years. So, how could I accept that I had received the Holy Spirit at a time when I had not felt Him (and 9 years after He had really started to make His presence known to me)?

I think I found the answer in the slow change. The experiences of the Holy Spirit convicting me of sin and turning me toward Christ were genuine, and I might have indeed received the Spirit when I was younger (as I said baptism is the normative way, not the exclusive way). The Bible, however, would tend to suggest that the Spirit was poured out upon me at my baptism. I could not feel it, because the change that my baptism brought about was still very small. That change has been growing and it will grow until I die. I do not have to fear trials because I know that I will only become more and more confident that the Spirit has been given to me.

Perhaps, why rebaptism is so widely practiced in various denominations is because of this slow change. Christians receive the Spirit, but they only really perceive Him through a later crisis experience. At that point, they believe they need to be Baptized again to demonstrate what has happened to them. Perhaps they think they have received the Spirit (and maybe they did), when they have only begun to notice something that has been going on since the time of their baptism. The change has grown, and they think they need to repeat the act that created the change in the first place.

We could think of this another way. I did not feel married for a long time (and the feeling is often not very overwhelming now). Let’s say that after five years of marriage I was really overwhelmed with how much I love my wife. I decide, “Man, I must really be married now, because I did not feel it before. I better have another wedding ceremony because I do not think the first one was genuine,” when all along that initial ceremony created the change that I am only now starting to perceive.

Or, we could live with my boy for a few months and then decide one day, “Gee wiz! We are parents,” (that actually will happen many times), “his birth must not have made us parents, because we really are now. Let’s have a ‘Parentage Ceremony’ to show that we are truly this boy’s parents.”

The problem with this prevailing mindset is that the Bible never gives an example of anyone being rebaptized. (Don’t anyone say, “But it was not really a baptism if you were not saved. You just got wet.” I can here you now, and that is silly. But for your sake, “The problem with baptism is that the Bible never gives an example of anyone going through a public washing ceremony twice in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”) The greater problem, however, is that too much of an emphasis on whether or not I began the faith correctly can place one’s soul in danger.

I am not making this stuff up, “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings [baptismon], the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment” (Heb 6:1-2). The writer of Hebrews then says that we need to do this because those who reject Christ cannot be restored once enlightened (v.4-6). So, focusing on these elementary things rather than focusing on growing toward maturity puts one in danger of apostasy! Crazy, right?! There are churches (you know the ones I am talking about) that every week only talk about the things mentioned in this passage: repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of hands (maybe not this one) and the return of Christ. Whether or not someone in that congregation needs to “really” believe this time and get rebaptized, however, is the last thing he needs to worry about. He needs to just start living a life of repentance and push ahead toward maturity in faith and love.

This can be understood in terms of marriage as well. Imagine the pitiful marriage where both partners spend all their time worrying about how they can get back the excitement they had when they first started dating. (Unfortunately this is not hard to imagine because this seems to be the cultures prevailing attitude.) These people do not move on toward mature acts of service for each other, but to greater and greater discontentment. This discontentment leads to kinky sex and then to adultery and the breaking of the marriage covenant.

It can also be understood in terms of childbirth. Imagine the parents who are always focused on the initial joys of having a baby. (Unfortunately this is not hard to imagine because we see three-year-olds getting pushed around the mall in strollers and high schoolers being coddles like they are still in diapers all the time.) Where does that lead? It leads to adult children who are like a mouth full of toothaches. Parents have so focused on the beginning so that they never moved on to building upon that initial foundation.

So, what’s my conclusion. I do not really know. This is a whole lot of dots being connected for me. I hope it connects some dots for you. Most of all I hope you let the change that happened at your baptism grow. Persevere through temptation and trial until God’s love is your ever-present joy. Never stop fighting sin and trusting in Christ. And remember, the daily struggle of turning toward Christ matters 1,000 times more than you walking the isle one more time to try to settle it with Jesus.

Lord, have mercy on us.

After this year’s Desiring God Conference, the Bethlehem College and Seminary put on an excellent ’round-table’ discussion and debate moderated by John Piper. The three major eschatological viewpoints were represented: Premillennialism (Jim Hamilton), Amillennialism (Sam Storms), and Postmillennialism (Doug Wilson). The representative speakers for each view are in parentheses. For more information about the debate, go here.

But getting to the good part… they have posted the audio and video on the desiring God web site and offered it for free viewing to all of us!

So, with no further ado, I give you “An Evening of Eschatology”!!!

Well, for those of you who wonder about the historicity of the Biblical story, more evidence seems to have been discovered in Egypt this past month. The Jerusalem Post has reports that “Joseph-Era” coins have been found by archaeologists:

“According to the report, the significance of the find is that archeologists have found scientific evidence countering the claim held by some historians that coins were not used for trade in ancient Egypt, and that this was done through barter instead. The period in which Joseph was regarded to have lived in Egypt matches the minting of the coins in the cache, researchers said.”

Read the whole article here.

Zondervan is releasing the Jesus Storybook Bible in a new deluxe edition that comes with three audio CDs of all the stories being narrated by David Suchet.

My wife and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading these stories to our children and I highly recommend you consider this edition of the book if you have older children that are learning to read along with their books. Audio stories with books can be very joyful and educational. Please let us know what you think about this book if you have read the first edition to your children and family.

Today I was browsing Richard Pratt’s ministry web site, Third Millennium Ministries, and came upon a wondful discovery! They have recently redesigned their minsitry web site and now they are offering all of their seminary video curriculum for FREE DOWNLOAD!

It is great news and I highly recommend that you consider downloading at least one of their video series to see how good their curriculum really is. Above, you will notice that I have posted the picture of one of their video series that I am currently going through in conjunction with a seminary class at Reformed Theological Seminary (where I attend). It is very good and if you are interested in learning more about the Old Testament, I would encourage you to start there with this video series.

Here are the links to the mp3 audio of the Primeval History video series for your listening pleasure:

• A Perfect World: Genesis 1:1-2:3
• Paradise Lost & Found: Genesis 2:4-3:24
• A World of Violence: Genesis 4:1-6:8
• The Right Direction : Genesis 6:9-11:9