Another election day.
A day when millions of Americans will breathe a sigh of relief and think “Ok, maybe it’ll be ok,” and where millions of other Americans will be despondent and thinking “It’s over. This was our last chance.”
It’s utter nonsense.
Certainly, this stuff matters.
But it’s not all that matters.
Political ads play to our fears, not to our hopes. They try to scare us. The media does the same thing. We hear how this is the most important election in history. (more…)
One of my great regrets of seminary was never having Grant Osborne as a professor. Many of my friends did and I’ve heard stories. I’ve heard his lectures compared to drinking through a firehose with all of the information he dispensed.
Dr. Osborne passed away last night. I had actually just bought one of his books earlier this week. While I never had him as a professor, I’ve benefited greatly from his writings. As someone who spends a lot of time studying the Bible, for New Testament scholars, I consider Osborne to easily be in the top five of the last 50 years. I know that I know the Bible better because of his writing.
His scholarship was always thorough but also approachable. It was written with conviction but also charitable. In writing about significant and contested theological subjects, there was a gentleness and respect. At the heart of it all was a man who was sincerely dedicated to the word of God and sharing that knowledge with his students and readers.
Recently, Osborne had finished a commentary series covering the entire New Testament through Lexham Press. An incredible undertaking, but what I found even more astounding is that he had already written commentaries on several books of the New Testament (. He served as the General Editor for the IVP New Testament Commentary Series. And his book on studying the Bible “The Hermeneutical Spiral” is perhaps his best known work. He was an editor for the New Living Translation of the Bible and contributed to the ESV Study Bible. A giant in New Testament Scholarship.
Personally, I consider his commentaries on Matthew and Revelation to be among the finest scholarly works done on those books.
I love this quote I read from Dr. Osborne after retiring in a blog post through Logos Academic, “I didn’t just like my job, I loved it and couldn’t get enough of it. I retired only because my body made me do so.”
Grant Osborne: 1942-2018.
Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’
-Matthew 25:19-21
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For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.-Galatians 5:17
501 years ago today, the history of the church, of Europe, and of the western world were forever changed in the town of Wittenberg Germany. Martin Luther wrote his 95 theses, a list of grievances against corrupt and unbiblical practices within the Catholic Church. The impact of this event continues to ripple throughout the Christian world.
Luther was not the first person to call for reform in the church. (more…)
I love preaching. I love everything about it. I love preparing to preach. I love behind the pulpit. I love evaluating a message afterwards. I love listening to sermons.
I think a lot about preaching.
In preaching, there are a lot of factors to consider in how to construct a sermon: genre of the passage, length of the passage, the audience, etc.
But four things that don’t change for me are certain goals I have in every message.
The Apostle Paul addresses the temptation for people to be drawn to unfaithful preaching in 2 Timothy 4:2-4: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
The Apostle James said to be doers of the word and not only hearers, adding: the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:25).
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