Category: Misc.

The publishers of the English Standard Version didn’t just produce a highly usable translation of the Bible. They also worked hard to make their work easily available on the internet. They’ve got a whole ESV blog full of nifty techie tricks that their version can do. But here’s one I discovered on my own: When…

I have been reading a very interesting book about John Dewey by Henry Edmondson called, John Dewey and The Decline of American Education. In this book Edmondson points out that much of Dewey’s educational theory has been employed by teachers and administrators who have not taken into account his foundational ideological commitments. While Dewey’s educational…

In these complicated days of geopolitical confusion, here is a straightforward question: What does the Bible say abut the Arab people? It’s a clear enough question, but who do you know who could put together more than a few sentences on the subject? There must be only a handful of such people, and one of…

John Mark Reynolds wrote recently about the relationship between education –especially the ability to use words well– and freedom. Verbal fluency is a mighty weapon to enslave or liberate people; it doesn’t take a Marx or a Foucault to spot the way education and miseducation direct the flow of power in a society. I have…

I love weird old books, and the worse they are, the better I like them. One of my favorite bad books is a modest little volume from 1927 called Why Few Succeed and Many Fail, by Dr. R. A. Richardson. Never heard of Richardson? He was “A Graduate and Licensed Osteopathic Physician and Surgeon, Also…

William Tyndale (1492-1536) changed the world with a revolutionary Bible translation that moved straight from the original languages into English with no Latin middle-man. The very words of Scripture were thus unleashed to conduct their own sovereign interrogation of the sixteenth century church: Are you hearers and doers of the word? Aside from the theological…

Once a week I get to meet with Old Testament scholar Joe Henderson and a group of students to study one Psalm for one hour. We’re up to Psalm 56. Whenever we gather around one of these psalms, I’m aware that we’re not the first believers to get our grubby hands on it. There’s a…

Blaise Pascal is a famous intellectual from the 17th century. He was a mathematical prodigy, a philosopher, and a Christian. He planned on writing a defense of Christianity, but he died at the age of 39 before it was finished. One of the amazing things about Pascal is that he was very sick in the…

There’s a band called The Lost Dogs who just finished up a tour in support of their latest album, The Lost Cabin and the Mystery Trees, with a couple of shows in southern California. I caught their San Bernardino show on Saturday night at a Community Church. About 125 people showed up, many of them…

Paul has one shot at defending himself before Agrippa, and he throws everything he’s got at it. One of the things he’s got is the story of his own conversion on the road to Damascus, and in Acts 26 he re-tells the whole episode to Agrippa in detail. In some respects, Paul gives more detail…

When Jesus Christ confronted Saul on the road to Damascus, he showed himself to be the greatest teacher, the ultimate rabbi. The ascended Christ is that teacher “than which none greater can be imagined.” He taught so much in so few words. Look at Acts 26:14: “It is hard for you to kick against the…

When Jesus Christ confronted Saul on the road to Damascus, he showed himself to be the greatest teacher, the ultimate rabbi. The ascended Christ is that teacher “than which none greater can be imagined.” He taught so much in so few words. Look at Acts 26:14: “It is hard for you to kick against the…