Theology 101: Truth and transparency are pillars of a just society. Lies and deception corrupt civilization. Christians must embrace the first and shun the second.
Theology professor, department chair, patristic scholar, writer, husband, father. Passionate about the one Lord and his church.
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Theology 101: Truth and transparency are pillars of a just society. Lies and deception corrupt civilization. Christians must embrace the first and shun the second.
Those who lead wisely read widely.
Too often the church Fathers are involuntarily conscripted to serve in someone’s ill-conceived doctrinal campaign.
Theology 101: If you can’t imagine how your form of Christianity could possibly survive under socialism, communism, monarchy, imperialism, or dictatorship, it may not be Christianity.
Theology 101: “Life does not arise from us, nor from our own nature; but it is bestowed according to the grace of God.” (Irenaeus of Lyons)
Theology 101: In Scripture, Jesus doesn’t offer the kingdoms of this present world to those who worship him. That was the devil. Let the reader understand.
Theology 201: No, the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 is not "just a metaphor." Those who keep saying this simply can't be trusted to play fair with facts. Read the academic article here: fathersonthefuture.com/__static/284... Watch the video summary here: youtu.be/H52MIVbTScI?...
Theology 101:
Theology 101:
Theology 101: I'm not the dumb one for doubting a church's credibility if it clouds the FAITH expressed in Scripture and the Rule of Faith, hijacks the church's HOPE by claiming to be the kingdom on earth, or negates the church's LOVE by violently forcing its will on its enemies.
Theology 101: “Blessed are those who achieve great political might, for they will be able to punish unrepentant sinners, persecute unpersuaded infidels, and prosecute unconvinced sectarians for my name’s sake,” said Jesus never.
Not kidding. My 18-year-old son just called the post office “the envelope people.”
Theology 101: It’s unhelpful when people say “believe science.” The sciences have varying degrees of reliability, and various disciplines among sciences sometimes compete with each other. Saying “believe science” is as vague as saying “believe religion.”
Jumping into biblical, theological, or ministry training this fall? Know somebody who is? Check this out: a.co/d/aE5h6RP
Theology 101: Beware of Christian influencers who lead where they haven’t followed, teach when they haven’t learned, write what they haven’t read, and preach what they haven’t lived.
Theology 101: In the household of Christian theology, while many are busy rearranging furniture, remodeling rooms, and landscaping the yard, others of us are digging around in the attic, rummaging in the basement, and unpacking the closets in search of treasures long forgotten.
Theology 101: Death may win its battles, but Life will win the war.
Theology 101: The lust of the flesh starts with me and ends with me and keeps me in the center of it all.
Theology 101: “I enjoy coffee.” Every word of that simple sentence is a reality because of the grace of a good and powerful God.
Theology 101: In gathering advice, seeking wisdom, or increasing in knowledge, perspectives and opinions of counselors and teachers should be weighed, not counted. And louder doesn’t mean better.
Be like Pluto.
An appeal to my sci-fi readers: Reviews of sequels, AItheist 2.0 and Eligy (sequel to Töpia) are far less than the originals. If you’ve read either, consider making up the inequity with an honest review. I would appreciate it.
Theology 101: No, death is not the doorway into resurrection life. Resurrection is the doorway into resurrection life. Resurrection is the opposite of death. This isn’t complicated.
Theology 101: No portion of Scripture, even of the Old Testament, is properly read or understood until it leads to Christ.
Theology 101: Christians should be salt to the world, not salty toward the world.
Theology 101: When you play the end-times “dating game,” you always, always lose.
Before you post some long-debunked but oh-so-juicy claim about church history, save yourself from humiliation by first reading this book. You’ll thank me later: “Urban Legends of Church History: 40 Common Misconceptions” a.co/d/1rYMfKT
Theology 101: “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless! The dishwasher is filled, the dishwasher is emptied, the dishwasher is filled again.”
Theology 101: If Paul hadn’t actually done astonishing miracles among the Corinthians, he could not have written 2 Corinthians 12:12.
Theology 101: Fundamentalists were right that there really are fundamentals of the Faith. Fundamentalists were wrong when they made fundamentals out of things that weren’t.
Theology 101: Christians often criticize a method that brings creedal theology to the Bible as a guide for its interpretation. I get that. But the alternative is almost always bringing unacknowledged or unconscious presuppositions to the text and pretending to have none.
Theology 101: When Christians start claiming superiority over others because of the beauty of their buildings, they have long since exchanged the church’s one foundation for another and are building on it with wood, hay, and stubble.
Theology 101: God can hearten hardened hearts and enliven lifeless lives. (Ezekiel 11:19)
Theology 101: The most dangerous heresies are not rejections of the truth but approximations of the truth.
Theology 101: Our job as Christians is to wrestle with what Scripture teaches and what it demands of us today. Our job is not to ask Scripture questions it doesn’t answer, get it to say things it doesn’t say, or explain why it doesn’t mean what it says.
Theology 101: I refuse to believe that a world with the coffee bean, the cocoa bean, and the vanilla bean could have been the result of blind chance.
Theology 101: Sometimes I get the sense that for a lot of people on here, biblical hermeneutics is the science of repeating things we heard from others, the skill of seeing what we want to see, or the art of just making stuff up.
Theology 101: “Every one that is severed from the knowledge of the living God is dead and buried even while in his body.” (Melito of Sardis)
Theology 101: No, the woman in Revelation 12 is NOT the Virgin Mary.
Theology 101: Christian Nationalism and its increasing militancy is an acute symptom of an over-realized eschatology. The only cure is retrieving the church’s original futurist premillennialism. Go ahead and unfollow me.
Theology 101: Though apologetics has its place, ultimate answer to the problem of evil, suffering, and death is not a syllogism, but a Savior; not a proposition, but a Person; not a reasonable explication, but an experience of redemption; not a compelling explanation, but cosmic restoration.
Theology 101: There are several church order and leadership models for which a reasonable biblical case can be made, but “Macho Man” is not one of them.
Theology 101: Gnosticism is to Christianity what turkey bacon is to bacon.
Theology 101: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, opinions, perspectives, policies, practices, and politics.
Theology 101: One of your leadership priorities in ministry is to gradually divest yourself of authority and responsibility and to gradually invest authority and responsibility in the next generation. Nobody is called to die with the baton.
“There are a lot of famous quotations floating around out there that nobody ever said.” —Anonymous
A mature writer is not one who has learned how to “kill your darlings,” but one who has learned to let editors “kill your darlings” with grace and gratitude.
Theology 101: I have long been an advocate of placing theology on the bottom shelf for easy accessibility. In doing so, we need to take care that we don’t toss it on the floor to be trampled underfoot.
Theology 101: As I step into an uncertain future, it’s comforting to know God’s already there.
Theology 101: The person and work of Jesus Christ is God’s love language. (John 3:16)
Theology 101: It’s okay to change your view on a matter of doctrinal opinion; and it’s okay to change back to your old view when you’ve learned you changed your mind hastily or without all the facts.
Theology 101: The age-old conspiracy to make good evil and evil good is so deep that most of the conspirators don’t even know they’re involved.
Theology 101: Scripture-twisting, or what I call biblical “gymnastigesis”, results in a tortured, distorted, and deformed theology.
I am not CN, in fact the opposite.
100%.
Yeah. I’m not sure though why you read “Spirit-empowered virtue” as a subjective self-estimation of the Spirit’s will rather than the clear biblically-defined virtues and fruit of the Spirit vs. deeds of the flesh. These platforms do not allow the kind of elaboration you want; ideas must be compact.
The definition of Christian virtue is not subjective. It is clearly spelled out in Scripture. I’m really having trouble grasping your concern. Maybe I’m the dumb one, but I just don’t see it. Perhaps others on here will help.
You’re the only one on three platforms, one with 17000 followers who is dissecting that phrase in these dark ways and calling it dangerous. The vast majority understand what Spirit-empowered virtue is biblically speaking.
This is not Christianese. The theological virtues and fruit of the Spirit are clear in Scripture: the Spirit produces in Spirit-indwelled believers faith, hope, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I have no idea what you’re objecting to.
Fruit of the Spirit—as a result of the inworking of the Spirit.
Yes. And baptism of repentance and its accompanying pledge to righteousness literally—not metaphorically—releases a person from a life of sin.
Skipping 1–4, however, and using other means to get to 5, is not good.
Theology 101: It’s actually a good thing for 1) a growing number of Christian citizens to 2) exhibit Spirit-empowered virtue resulting in 3) virtue-driven voting and political action leading to 4) a more virtuous society reflected in 5) laws that promote righteousness.
I never read a single page of any “Left Behind” book nor saw a second of any “Left Behind” movies. Surprised? Disappointed? Relieved? Don’t care?
Theology 101: In ministry, don’t let the one that goes astray cast a shadow over the many who stayed faithful to the end.
Theology 101: For almost 2000 years Christians of every generation thought they were in the end times, experiencing tribulation, apostasy, the oppression of antichrists, and the deception of false prophets. They were right.
Theology 101: Trying to grow in your relationship with God without attending to his written Word is like trying to grow in a relationship with a friend while ignoring everything they say.
Theology 101: There is a difference between “the priesthood of the individual believer” and “the priesthood of all believers.” The former means “I’m my own priest,” the latter, “we are each other’s priests.” The second is the classic biblical doctrine; the first is a distortion.
Theology 101: If you agree with everything you believed 20 years ago, you may be unteachable. If you agree with nothing you believed 20 years ago, you may be unstable.
Theology 101: In ministry, preach, teach, exhort, encourage, admonish, correct, train, discipline, confront, and shepherd. But don’t rant, rage, avenge, attack, harm, oppress, demean, deride, control, manipulate, or destroy. It’s not that complicated.
Theology 101: The untrained and un-discipled are simply not qualified to train and disciple others. (2 Timothy 2:2; 2 Peter 3:16)
A musical would be gas.
And why hasn’t anybody made a Biopic of John Wesley? It would be great.
Exactly!
Theology 101: One of the best zingers in church history— “He told me I was rotten at heart and supposed I was one of Wesley’s followers. I told him, ‘No, I am Wesley.’” (John Wesley)
Theology 201: One part apologetics, one part sci-fi, one part too-close-to-home: The AItheist. a.co/d/h86mSv2
Theology 101: to me, a lot of modern-era biblical commentaries and systematic theologies do nothing for my love of the Word of God or the God of the Word. Their intricate analyses and critical exegesis function like a complex machine that spins gold into straw.
Theology 101: I’ve noticed that when people say “So-and-So” is a better preacher, they almost always mean the enjoyable delivery of the messenger, not the doctrinal fidelity of the message.
Too many posters’ platforms are built on a flimsy foundation and boost flimflam and folly.
Theology 101: American Christianity needs an exorcism from the demons of cronyism, good-old-boyism, cartel-building, logrolling, and smoke-blowing.
Theology 101: “You have acres and acres of arable land: fields and orchards, mountains and dells, rivers and springs. But what comes after this? Is not all that awaits you a six-foot plot of earth?” (Basil of Caesarea)
Theology 101: You know those pivotal scenes in movies where a crumby character has an epiphany and immediately changes into a heroic figure? Yeah, that hardly ever happens in real life. Real growth in character is a long-term, daily struggle with ups and downs and gradual change.
Theology 101: In God’s great plan of redemption, real progress is impossible without discontinuity, and reliable promises are impossible without continuity.
Theology 101: I’m more than a little concerned watching modern Christianity’s influential people do everything they can to hold onto their power, position, platform, and prestige, even if it means trashing other Christians. It’s as if Philippians 2 doesn’t apply to them at all.
Theology 101: With Genesis 1–3 and Revelation 20–22, everything in between makes much more sense.
Theology 101: Teach those under your spiritual care the difference between settled doctrine, unsettled doctrine, and unsettling doctrine.
Theology 101: At least the Corinthians had enough sense to rally around godly apostles and teachers; today’s Christians senselessly rally around godless parties and politicians.
Theology 101: God’s plan for the original creation was always to outdo his original creation.
Theology 101: Divide the years of true spiritual revival and awakening by 2000 years of church history, and they account for maybe 1% of Christian experience. Focus your ministry of faithful word and sacrament for the 99% of the normal church experience.
Theology 101: If a church’s whole ministry philosophy rests on one verse, it’s not a healthy church. No verse was meant to bear that weight.
Theology 101: Real patristic study is done by acquiring numerous languages, studying ancient primary sources in the best critical editions, learning research methods under experienced advisers, and engaging in peer review with other scholars. It’s not done by watching YouTube.
Theology 101: Stages of societal decline: 1) ignore depravity; 2) allow depravity; 3) smile at depravity; 4) encourage depravity; 5) celebrate depravity; 6) reward depravity; 7) empowered depravity; 8) bow to depravity.
Theology 101: When society gives people opportunities to be depraved, they will always rise to the occasion.
Theology 101: I entreat the Lord to vindicate truth and vanquish falsehood.
Theology 101: “But the Corinthian church was riddled with heresy!” in reaction to an appeal to a widespread consensus in the first-to-second-century fathers is the rhetorical equivalent of “but the thief on the cross wasn’t baptized!” in reaction to calling people to baptism.
Theology 101: Too many Christians love their opinions so much they re-name them “The Truth.”
Theology 101: I know I’m missing out on mad sales, but two things are preventing me from writing a book calculating or even guesstimating the day, year, or even generation of Christ’s return: 1) sanity, and 2) the Bible.
Theology 101: Doubling down on error when confronted with truth is not a sign of commendable fortitude but of condemnable folly.
Theology 101: Our world constantly confuses the profane for the profound.