In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul describes several habituated behaviors that he warns will keep people from God’s kingdom: 9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards […]
New Testament
Does the religious status of New Testament documents undermine their historical veracity?
In his classic 1943 book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, F.F. Bruce makes the following observation: “Somehow or other, there are people who regard a ‘sacred book’ as ipso facto under suspicion, and demand much more corroborative evidence for such a work than they would for an ordinary secular or pagan writing.” This […]
34. Wes Olmstead on the Sermon on the Mount
John Stott opens his book The Message of the Sermon on the Mount by observing, “The Sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguably it is the least understood, and certainly it is the least obeyed.” Countless people have found themselves inexorably drawn to this profound teaching, […]
On deferring to scholarly consensus
It is not always reasonable to be skeptical. Sometimes it is very unreasonable. A good example is when a scholarly consensus exists. While it is a truism that scholarly unanimity is rarely if ever attained in any field of enquiry (except on the most trivial matters), there are many instances where a consensus (say, of […]
