The Church and Home: Partners and Parallels
The Christian faith is no stranger to family. After all, we walk into church to greet Brother so-and-so, and his wife, Sister so-and-so, even though we can’t trace any biological heritage to these close Christian friends. It soon becomes apparent that the Gospel has connected Christians in such a deep way that can be described only in familial terms. When Jesus is alerted to his mother and brothers’ presence during his public...
Are You Ministering to Humans?
In the 1982 blockbuster Blade Runner, (or its literary precursor Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, is assigned to track down bio-engineered replicates and “retire” them—that is, kill them. Of course, the duplicates and humans look and sound exactly the same. The only way to distinguish between a human person and a facsimile is to use a test, the Voight-Kampff, which focuses on their...
Biblical Inerrancy, the Chicago Statement, and the Old Testament
When surveying teachings on the doctrine of Scripture, one need not look long before encountering biblical inerrancy. After all, “Scripture is the source of evangelical faith, and since inerrancy is ultimately a matter of reading Scripture faithfully inerrancy is often regarded as of the essence of genuine Christian faith.”[1] However, this doctrine has caused a fair share of misgivings within the last one hundred years, specifically...
Concrete Genders in a Gender Fluid World
On March 23rd of this year, North Carolina’s General Assembly proposed and passed HB2 (House Bill 2), or what is more informally known as the “bathroom bill.” In very plain language, the bill responds to an ordinance passed in Charlotte, N.C., which called for further public accommodation for those in the LGBT community. Specifically, this ordinance would have allowed transgender individuals to use the bathroom of the gender with...
The Church in Light of the Trinity
What is the church? Is it a building? Is it a bride? Is it a body? Evidently it’s all of the above. Scripture gives us a myriad of pictures for how we might understand the gathering of believers (Eph. 2:21; 5:22-33, 1 Cor. 15:20-23).[1] Each picture offers a different perspective. But none of them describe the Church in her entirety. Throughout history, the church has been understood largely by her marks and/or attributes. According...
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