It seems inevitable that there will be a tension for christians between academic knowledge and faith. But sometimes the tension becomes very personal in its impacts, and feelings are high on both sides. These issues have come to a head a number of times in recent years at universities and colleges in the USA.
We are nearly at the end of this series of posts on Understanding the Bible in the 21st century. Today: in the light of all I’ve concluded so far, how should we read the Bible and apply it?
This is the tenth in a series of posts on Understanding the Bible in the 21st century. We have seen that the Bible claims to be an authoritative scripture which reveals God. We have also seen that it doesn’t seem to claim to be inerrant or the very words of God himself. So what can […]
This is the ninth in a series of posts on Understanding the Bible in the 21st century. Christians generally believe the Bible, and believe in the Bible, but what should we believe about the Bible? Probably the strongest claim christians make about the Bible is that it is inerrant – it contains no errors. There […]
This is the eighth in a series of posts on Understanding the Bible in the 21st century. We have looked at what Jesus, the Bible and the Bible authors say about the Bible and how they used their scriptures. Now it is time to see what we can conclude about the Bible, and whether some […]
I have looked at six topics so far in this series on Understanding the Bible in the 21st century. Before I move on to draw some conclusions, I want to sum up what I have learnt so far.
This is the sixth in a series of posts on Understanding the Bible in the 21st century. The Bible is divided into two ‘Testaments’. It is obvious that the Old Testament tells about Hebrew history and religion before Jesus, while the New Testament tells about the coming of Jesus and what happened next. But is […]
This is the fourth in a series of posts on Understanding the Bible in the 21st century. We have seen that the Bible doesn’t claim as much for itself as some christians do. Now I test these conclusions by examining how Jesus and his apostles treated their Bible – our Old Testament.
This is the third in a series of posts on Understanding the Bible in the 21st century. It is important we begin not with what people say about the Bible, but what it says about itself.
We are all familiar with several contemporary meanings of the word “church” – a building, a Sunday event, a group of people or a denomination. But what did it mean in the New Testament? The Greek word “ekklesia” is often translated “church”, but what did it mean?