The Gospel of Jesus in the Life of Asa

2 CHRONICLES 14-16: ASA When reading a narrative a reader must look for clues, themes, etc that foreshadow what will happen at the end of the story. After reading the whole story, those clues and themes make greater sense, and are read in light of the rest of the story. When reading stories like Romeo and Juliet, The Odyssey, or …

An Examination of “The Cross and Christian Ministry” with Implications for Southern Baptist Life, Part 3

This post is the final post in a series that has focused on the insights gained from D.A. Carson’s “The Cross and Christian Ministry.” This final post focuses on more implications drawn from his work as he examines I Corinthians and the effect of the Cross on ministry. Carson’s work has challenged me and so I hope that this final …

Jesus For President?

During the past few months campaign signs of every color have littered leaf-covered yards, slam campaign ads have littered airways, and bumper stickers have touted the driver’s candidate of choice. I have grown so callous to all of this campaigning that I almost don’t even notice the signs and stickers anymore. Yet, one bumper sticker successfully caught my attention. This …

An Examination of “The Cross and Christian Ministry” with Implications for Southern Baptist Life, Part 2

The first post in this series can be found here. Carson’s “Cross and Christian Ministry” should don the library of every gospel minister or aspiring minister. I commend this book especially to those of us (like the Baptist 21 writers) who are preparing for gospel ministry. In addition, it should don the bookshelves of pastors who have been along the …

Why Scholars don’t Understand Amos? The Gospel.

Most scholars agree with Julius Wellhausen that the conclusion to the book of Amos (Amos 9:11-15) is not authentic and was not written by Amos. The reason they believe it cannot be authentic is that the tone of Amos’ message changes drastically from merciless judgment to merciful blessing. He spends nine and half chapters aggressively promising his wrath to Israel, …

What do SBC Churches in the 21st Century Need Most in Order to Fulfill the Great Commission? [Part Two] With Insights from E. M. Bounds’ Power Through Prayer

[This post is part two in a two-part series. Part one was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd at Baptist21. Please check it out before reading on as this post will probably not make much sense to those who haven’t read the first one!]. The great need of our time, as I suggested in part one of this series, is for …

What do SBC Churches in the 21st Century Need Most in Order to Fulfill the Great Commission? [Part One] With Insights from E. M. Bounds’ Classic, Power Through Prayer

Whoever you are in whatever station you might be as you sit down to read this post, let’s play a game of pretend together. Let’s pretend that you are a young man in your mid-twenties. You have just graduated from seminary and have been called to your first pastorate at a small rural church. The church to which you have …

Reading the Bible Christocentrically: Rescuing the Ark Narrative from Enlightenment Reductionism

Interpreting OT history is often a confusing task for the church. How do you apply Israelite history to the modern church? There have been two dominant attempts to resolve this tension: allegory and historical-grammatical method. Allegory arose mainly with people who deeply believed the OT was of value to the church and about Christ, so they struggled to read it as …

The Politics of Jesus

The First Baptist Church of Durham hosted a conference last week entitled The Politics of Jesus. Here is an excerpt describing the questions addressed by the conference: The modern church finds itself riddled with internal contradictions between the teaching of Jesus and politics. The demands of caring for the poor, the elderly, and children fiercely interact with the issues of …