The Arrogance of the Urban
One of the perennial dangers of Christian ministry is to begin thinking that our particular ministry is the most important ministry and that everyone ought to be doing what we are doing. Much of this is understandable. After all, if we are passionate about the ministry to which God has called us, then we naturally begin to promote that ministry and place it at the forefront of our thinking. But, we too often forget that God’s plan for the Kingdom is much bigger than our little worlds. There are other ministries that matter too.
I have seen a particular example of this phenomenon in my denomination (the PCA) over the … Continue reading...
Do You Obey God with Hopefulness?
God has a habit of asking his people to do difficult things. Unthinkable things. Nonsensical things. He asked Noah to build a 400 foot ark in the middle of dry land. He asked Gideon to send 32,000 troops home before the battle with the Midianites, leaving him only 300 men. And he asked Hosea to marry an unfaithful woman—a prostitute. In all such instances, God calls his people to radical obedience. He calls us to trust Him.
But do we? The issue isn’t just whether we obey. The issue is how we obey. Do we do the difficult thing God is calling us to do with hope and confidence that … Continue reading...
Did God Really Say? A New Book on the Authority of Scripture
Last year at the 2011 General Assembly for the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), I participated in a conference on the authority of Scripture that was sponsored by Reformed Theological Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Covenant Theological Seminary. Two scholars from each institution were asked to present papers on a variety of different topics. The idea behind the conference is that the church is never finished waging the battle over the authority of the Bible–each new generation needs to do its part to address contemporary issues.
Those papers have now been gathered together in a book edited by David Garner: Did God Really Say? Affirming the Truthfulness and Trustworthiness of … Continue reading...
Can the New Testament Canon be Defended? My Interview with Derek Thomas
Reformation 21, the website of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, just posted my interview with Derek Thomas on my new book, Canon Revisited. I appreciate Derek’s invitation to do this interview–it was an interesting discussion on a number of important topics related to canon.
Here is an excerpt:
…[DT] What are the most crucial issues relating to a conservative/reformed defense of the canon today?
[MK] I think one of the critical weaknesses in modern canonical studies is that Christians often have no theology of canon. We have a lot of historical facts–anyone who has read the fine works of Metzger and Bruce will have plenty of patristic
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Rescuing Church from a Facebook Culture
One of my favorite childhood memories is watching the movie Star Wars in the theater in 1977. I (along with an entire nation) was awestruck. Nothing like that had ever been done before. We were all sucked into a new world of spaceships, light sabers, strange creatures, and distant galaxies. But of all the things that caught the attention of the average Star Wars viewer, no doubt the amazing technology of the future was near the top of the list. What would it be like to have robots with personalities, to hover above the ground on a “land speeder,” to play “chess” with virtual-holographic images, and to have lost limbs … Continue reading...