I haven’t been blogging regularly here for nearly a year. The primary reason is that I don’t have the time to write like I like. However, I have been blogging over here,

Bible Thumping Wingnut

Granted, many of those articles are old Hip and Thigh articles I reworked, but I do have a few...

Civil War in Israel – Judges 20-21

Judges 19 recounts the horrific event that took place in Gibeah. A group of thuggish perverts attacked a Levite, his servant, and his concubine wife. The wife was abused the entire night and died of her injuries the following morning. The Levite, as callus as...

My annual book review list for the year 2017.

Books I Heard

In The Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette– Hampton Sides

A wonderfully written narrative detailing the first attempt to cross the Arctic Sea. At the time, it was believed that the Arctic was a vast...

The Outrage at Gibeah (Judges 19)

The last five chapters of Judges are better treated as appendices. They set the overall theme of the book that speaks to Israel’s canaanization. The events recorded in them take place early in Israel’s history in the land. Shortly after Joshua had died....

The Downfall of Gideon – Judges 8

Throughout the Scripture, we can take note that, at times, God will utilize men who may not be of the greatest of character.

– Abraham lied to Pharaoh about his wife and he took matters into his own hands with attempting to obtain a heir.

– Jacob acted deceitfully, stealing the birth-right from his

Shortly after I posted my article exploring the facepalming misuse of Scripture by many in the Reformed camp with the overuse of a typological hermeneutic, I had a dear pastor friend of mine leave a blistering comment on Facebook. He wrote,

There is rich irony in being lectured about typology by dispensationalists who regularly see Apache

Theology that is really cool and fun and stuff

At the risk of receiving a severe wedgie from a number of my Reformed acquaintances who run around my game circle, I wanted to respond to a discussion that took place at the ReformCom 2016 with the guys of Apologia radio, N.D. Wilson, and Darren Doane.

I specifically want to focus in upon the bizarre

1 Corinthians 8

I recently introduced the topic of Paul’s discussion on eating food sacrificed to idols from 1 Corinthians 8-10. Folks can pop over to my first post to catch up on the background info.

However, to provide a little recap:

It is my contention that Paul was doing much more than settling a dispute between factions of believers at

Gideon Delivers Israel – 6:28-7:25

The last judge I introduced was Gideon. He came from a well-to-do, wealthy and influential family. He was also a skeptical, sign-seeking, questioner of God. When the Angel of the LORD chose him to defend Israel, he excused himself by claiming he was a big nothing among the people of Israel. Yet, in spite of

An Overview of 1 Corinthians 8-10

I have been meaning for a while now to post some of my studies on 1 Corinthians that I presented to my volunteers at Grace to You over the last year. I was particularly anxious to toss up my studies on chapters 8-10, because I believe they are so wildly misunderstood by the larger Christian community.

But

I wanted to offer some comments on this post,

Aquinas or Van Til? Testimony of a campus minister

It was written in response to a talk that Scott Oliphint gave at the ReformedCon 2016 conference called Reformed or Romanist? Dr. Oliphint reviewed and critiqued a book entitled Evangelical Exodus, a collection of testimonies by former students

The Calling of Gideon – Judges 6

Of all the accounts recorded in Judges, Gideon’s is unique in that his is probably the longest one with the exception of Samson. Gideon’s judgeship and its aftermath covers four chapters, 6-9.

His account can be divided into two sections. Chapters 6-8 tell of Gideon’s deliverance of Israel

So recently on twitter, I had a back and forth with a Reasons to Believe apologist.

It began this way:

I tweeted out the following,

The next day, an associate of Reasons to Believe, tweeted to me the following response,

Now in fairness, he is absolutely correct. I had mis-tweeted, as it were. Technically, Ross, and RTB apologists, argue that there

I had the privilege once again to join the BTWN fellas to kick around a few topics. First, we discussed what church growth should look like for a congregation. Then we turned to Christian potheads, man. And then we spent the remainder of our time in a spirited discussion about whether or not Christian parents can send their kids to public school.

I wanted to offer some comments on a recent radio/podcast discussion between Sye Ten Bruggencate, who maintains the Proof That God Exists website, and apologist Eric Hernandez of Eric Hernandez Ministries. They were together on the Sin Boldly Podcast discussing apologetic methodology. Sye took the presuppositional position, Eric the classicist

Deborah and Barak – Judges 4-5

As I come to book of Judges this time, we encounter an unique story: the Judges Deborah and Barak.

Two things make this story unique:

First, there are two chapters devoted to describing the events. Chapter 4 provides us with the historical narrative. The chapter contains a lot of Hebrew waw consecutives that tell

I’ve been laying out my case as to how I believe continuationism is not a non-essential, second-tier doctrinal issue.

As I explained in two previous posts on this subject, see HERE and HERE, continuationism is a disastrous doctrine both in the church and with individuals because it has massive influence upon the way people think about

So I had a critic link me to some web forum comments he made against my posts I’ve been writing exposing the spiritual shamanism of continuationism. I wanted to offer up some responses to various, selected thoughts.

My challenger writes,

Fraud predominates in continuationism, yet Pentecostalism testifies overall being among most committed to

I have taken up explaining why I believe continuationism is not a non-essential doctrinal issue. My previous post introduced my basic thoughts on the matter, but just a quick recap:

Contrary to what is generally agreed upon among garden variety Evangelicals and Christian denominations, I don’t believe continuationism, or charismaticism, or

I am becoming convinced more and more every day that continuationism/charismaticism is not just a non-essential doctrinal issue for Christians.

My thinking about this started shortly after the Strange Fireconference as I engaged continuationist critics on social media. They denounced the conference with such fervent descriptions as

The First Three Judges (3)

The basic theme of Judges is outlined in chapter 2:11-19. A cycle took place during this time in Israel’s history: The people would sin, God judged them, the people would cry out to the LORD for help, and God would raise up a judge to deliver them. After the judge died, however, the people fell back into sin, and

Prepare yourselves. This is a, a long, withering, geeky post. Pack a sammich.

I recently participated in a podcast discussion on the topic of apologetic methodology with Adam Tucker, the director of evangelism and missions at Southern Evangelical Seminary. The discussion was meant to highlight the key differences between classic Thomistic