Posts in Theology
By Ken Berding
Jun. 18, 2013 3:04 p.m.
Theology,
New Testament
A couple years ago I was asked to lead a discussion for the Talbot School of Theology faculty on “The New Perspective on Paul.” Now, you should know up-front that (for the most part) I am not very positive about the overall approach that New Perspectivists take when they interpret the letters of Paul (esp. Galatians and Romans) and when they try to set those letters in a reconstructed first century Jewish theological context. But I also do not believe that it is right or wise for people to be dogmatic about topics that they don’t know very much about. So, to help you interact responsibly with the New Perspective, I want to revisit the lecture I did for the Talbot faculty try to help you understand the New Perspective on Paul so that you can critically weigh for yourself its merits and demerits.
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By John McKinley
Jun. 17, 2013 9:48 p.m.
Theology,
Marriage and Family
An introduction to the book, His Brain, Her Brain: How Divinely Designed Differences Can Strengthen Your Marriage, by Walt and Barb Larimore (Zondervan, 2008).
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By John McKinley
Jun. 7, 2013 6:00 a.m.
Theology
This last part in this series on hell is a listing of many of the biblical passages that touch directly on God's punishment of evildoers. I assembled the passages so that I could see them all at once. The repetition of key phrases and patterns stood out in helpful ways for me. I found it very convincing on many of the traditional aspects of the doctrine.
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By John McKinley
Jun. 5, 2013 6:00 a.m.
Theology,
Historical Theology
As Part 3 in this series on the doctrine of hell, I introduce an interpretation of hell that is coming into print from a few contributors during the last decade. See Part 1 on the metaphorical language for hell, and Part 2 on the doctrine of degrees of punishments. The traditional teaching about hell has been criticized for many reasons, one of which is that sin continues forever in hell. This seems to be a cosmic dualism where good prevails only in heaven (the new creation), but evil continues to hold out in hell where evildoers continue to hate God and compound their guilt forever and ever. This might not be the best conclusion.
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By John McKinley
Jun. 3, 2013 6:00 a.m.
Theology
Following on my earlier post on the metaphorical language used for naming and describing the punishment of hell, this post explores the doctrine of degrees of punishment. The basic idea is that the Bible seems to say that all evildoers will suffer the same hell for their sins, but God's perfect justice means that worse criminals will suffer worse punishments for their crimes. This is not torture or exacting pain as somehow accompiishing something for God, as if God were a fiendish tormentor. But then what is it?
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By John McKinley
May. 30, 2013 12:32 p.m.
Theology
This is the first post in a series of four on the doctrine of hell. I’m not attempting to detail everything about hell in a systematic way. I will focus on three topics that I think are often misunderstood. One of the posts will introduce an idea that is a relatively minority opinion (God’s conquest of sin). The doctrine of hell is a difficult topic. I think that people are often unsure about how to feel about hell, whether we should feel sad, or should we feel relieved that justice is being done? What are God’s feelings about hell? How do we understand hell and God’s love?
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By Darian Lockett
May. 30, 2013 11:09 a.m.
Theology,
New Testament,
Old Testament
When we read the Bible, how do we get to theology? Should we read the Bible as the word of God for the church, as an artifact of history, or as the material for systematic theology? The term biblical theology has been used to describe all of these perspectives.
So, what is biblical theology? Some would describe it is a theology that is biblical, theology that is grounded in Christian Scripture. Others might insist that biblical theology is only the theology contained in the Bible, that is, descriptively the theology of the Bible itself. In Mark Elliott’s The Heart of Biblical Theology, reading the Bible theologically demands both notions of biblical theology above. Elliott’s book argues for the undervalued role of providence in understanding how biblical theology must be both constructive theology grounded in Scripture and rigorously descriptive of the theology of the Bible itself.
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When we read the Bible, how do we get to theology? Should we read the Bible as the word of God for the church, as an artifact of history, or as the material for systematic theology? The term biblical theology has been used to describe all of these perspectives.