Tag Archives: Bible

Peter J. Williams lectures on the historicity of the resurrection

Here’s the lecture:

There are lots of interesting things in this lecture:

  • non-Christian accounts of early Christianity
  • textual issues with resurrection passages
  • the concept of resurrection
  • specific teachings of Jesus

The total is 100 minutes long, but if you give it a listen, I’m sure you will hear something new. He actually lectures only for the first hour, and then the hosting pastor speaks for 23 minutes and then there is some Q&A with the church members until the end.

Marcia Segelstein’s article on chastity in the newest issue of Salvo magazine

Here’s the article that is available online on the Salvo Magazine web site.

Here’s a bit about the author, Marcia Segelstein:

Marcia Segelstein, a senior editor of Salvo, is a part-time writer and a full-time mother. A former senior producer for CBS News, she has also written for First Things, Touchstone, and OneNewsNow.

And here’s a snippet from the article:

Dr. Jenell Williams Paris is the author of The End of Sexual Identity: Why Sex Is Too Important to Define Who We Are. She told Relevant that Christians need more than rules to live chastely. What’s often missing, Paris believes, is a compelling story and an understanding of the “whys” behind the rules. To explain what she means, she uses the example of parents teaching their little girl to look both ways before crossing a street:

A young child may follow this rule solely because of the power of her parents’ authority, which is appropriate. As she grows, the child [continues to look both ways,] but for a deeper reason that she owns for herself. She sees the broader context of traffic, understands the benefits and dangers, and makes choices accordingly. Rules are external and authority-bound: Maturity requires knowledge of why to do the right thing, not just what the right thing is.

Chris Jessee is the Youth and Family Pastor at First Baptist Church in Waynesville, Ohio. Last year, he organized an event in conjunction with True Love Waits, an organization that promotes abstinence till marriage, and several area churches. Unlike other such events he’s been involved with, he included parents in this one. “Every year we did True Love Waits without the parents, we were missing out on a critical aspect of it,” he explained in an interview. “I believe parents are the key element when it comes to discussions of purity with teens.”

In his view, the church’s role should be to encourage and train parents to address abstinence issues with their children. Echoing Dr. Paris’s approach, Jessee believes a critical aspect of that training is providing both parents and their teens with the “whys” they need to defend their faith and its practices. Merely laying out the rules isn’t enough.

Statistics back up Jessee’s views on the crucial role of parents. A study conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, titled “With One Voice 2010,” asked teens aged 12 to 19 who is most influential when it comes to decisions about sex. Almost half, 46 percent, said their parents were most influential, with friends coming in second at 20 percent.

That’s exactly right – we need to have reasons and evidence when talking about chastity – and call young people up to a higher standard of romance, intimacy and commitment. They need to know what they are getting by embracing chastity, and not just what they are giving up. On my blog, I often post about the research that shows the benefits of chastity, as in this previous post. I love chastity and I highly recommend it – especially to Christian men.

And yes – I really did write the sidebar for this article, and you can see it online. The sidebar is about practical tips for chastity. It’s based on some of my previous posts on how to be chaste. The older I get, the more I thank God that I still have my wits about me when it comes to women. Chastity allows you to be very circumspect about women and to make sure that they really are as good as you think they are and that they really can do the things that you need them to do in a marriage.

Obama administration advising black pastors on how to get out the vote

From the Blaze.

Excerpt:

Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri revealed on MSNBC Tuesday that lawyers from the ACLU, IRS administrators, and even Attorney General Eric Holder will soon be speaking with hundreds of pastors in the African-American community on how they can best comport themselves throughout the 2012 election.

“We will have representatives from nine denominations who actually pastor somewhere in the neighborhood of about 10 million people,” he said, “and we’re going to first of all equip them with the information they need to know about what they can say and what they cannot say in the church that would violate their 501c3 status with the IRS.” [Emphasis added]

While they won’t specifically tell people whom to vote for, the respected speakers will discuss “draconian” (hint) voter identification laws, and the Congressional Black Caucus expects the move will only help the Obama’s campaign.

[…]Reports have noted that Obama alienated members of the African American community after endorsing gay marriage and overseeing an increase of the African American unemployment rate to roughly 14% (nearly 35% for teenagers).

This is one of those curious things that confuse people about Christianity – the number of people who claim to be Christians but who are clearly not Christians in serious sense of the term. Let me be clear. There is no such thing as an authentic Christian who votes in favor of partial birth abortion, the redefinition of marriage, subsidies for those who have babies out of wedlock, and increased economic dependence on a secular leftist state which is hostile to Christian evangelism and school choice.

For the record, I am a colored Protestant, and I have darker skin than Obama. I am a real Christian, and it doesn’t matter to me what Obama looks like when I’m voting. I vote based on Christian convictions, not tribalism and racism. There is no support for redistribution of wealth from families to government in the Bible. On the contrary, there is support for private property and meaningful work and private charity. It’s up to each Christian to be informed and to vote accordingly.