Recent posts

The historical justification of the people of God by faithfulness
Aaron Darrisaw has asked about Stephen Westerholm’s critique of the New Perspective on Paul. I don’t have access to Westerholm’s book at the moment (I’m sitting in Damascus airport), so I can’t comment directly on his analysis. However, I could have a bit of a… ( | 5 comments)
Another introduction to the New Perspective on Paul
Evangelical theology—that is, theology as it endeavours to ground the identity and purpose of the church today in the teaching of the New Testament about Jesus—has arrived at a fork in the road. There is the broad road of the Reformed paradigm and its derivatives, which leads to obsolescence, and… ( | 5 comments)
Apocalyptic realism and deliverance from the coming wrath
I have been involved in an interesting conversation (much of which is in German) at peregrinatio regarding the meaning of Paul’s statement in 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 that the believers would be delivered “from the wrath to come”. My view is that this verse has reference to a second… ( | 9 comments)
The smoke of their torment
I suggested recently in a discussion about the supposed “hell” passages in the New Testament that Revelation 14:9-11 is arguably the “only passage in the whole of scripture that speaks of an endless torment of ordinary people”. The language and context of the passage, however, make it abundantly… ( | 6 comments)
Kenton Sparks: historical criticism and the virgin birth
I find this strange. Kenton Sparks (God’s Word in Human Words) is happy to accept the possibility that not all the miracle stories in the Bible actually happened. He also thinks it quite likely that some of the miraculous events related are only partly historical. Since there is… ( | 26 comments)
Strange but true: sealed Christian books found by Bedouin
Some years ago I proposed a thought experiment as a way of grasping something of the strangeness of scripture: It makes for an interesting thought experiment to consider what would have happened if the early Jewish Christians had been driven from Jerusalem into the desert. What if, under threat of… ( | 6 comments)
The “Canaanite genocide” and the so-called “gospel of love”
There’s an important section in Kenton Sparks’ God’s Word in Human Words in which he discusses how we might discern positive “trajectories” that may enable us to reach moral or theological conclusions beyond—or perhaps even in contradiction to—explicit affirmations in the… ( | 4 comments)
From New Perspective to missional praxis: plotting the tensions
I have come across a number of people recently who, in their different ways, appear to agree that the future of evangelicalism lies ideally in a convergence of the New Perspective and emerging-missional forms of church. The question has been, though, whether such a convergence has any… ( | 8 comments)
What is lacking of the sufferings of Christ in my flesh
This verse was alluded to briefly by Peter Wilkinson in a comment relating to the place of suffering in Paul’s thought. My view is that the suffering of the early church, culminating potentially in a death like Jesus’, plays a much more important and limiting part in his theology than we… ( | 3 comments)
Today you will be with me in paradise
With all the depressing talk of hell recently it seems a good idea to turn our minds in a more positive direction and give some thought to what the alternative might be. My view is that the New Testament does not make “heaven” the normal destination for those who are saved. What we have is… ( | 22 comments)
Why evangelical biblical scholars are so hesitant about accepting historical-critical conclusions
As a (moderately) good postmodern—and as a student of literature rather than of history—I have tended to avoid many of the problems raised by historical-criticism regarding the factual integrity and coherence of the Bible. The reason is that I think that the more interesting and more pressing… ( | 15 comments)
Kent L. Yinger: The New Perspective on Paul
The so-called New Perspective has come up a few times recently here, not least because it has a significant bearing on how we understand New Testament teaching about wrath, judgment, “hell”, and salvation. My impression is that the New Perspective is still largely confined to the academic sphere… ( | 8 comments)
A new perspective on universalism and hell
One of the things that has surprised me in the Bell’s hell controversy is the assumption behind much of the criticism that the denial of hell as a place of eternal conscious torment amounts to an endorsement of universalism—or at least as a “preliminary step” in that direction as it was put… ( | 16 comments)
The parable of the weeds and the question of hell
What bearing do the parable of the weeds (Matt. 13:24-30) and its interpretation (13:36-43) have on the current debate about hell? Two questions present themselves. First, is Jesus speaking of an imminent judgment on Israel or a final judgment on humanity—or perhaps both? Secondly, if this is… ( | 31 comments)
The grain of wheat that falls and dies
Jesus’ image of the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies is, I imagine, most commonly understood as saying something about his death as the means by which many will be saved. Beasley-Murray, for example, writes: “so surely as a grain of wheat must be buried if it is to yield fruit for… ( | 9 comments)
Finding better ways to do theology
David Fitch offers an interesting analysis of why the winds of popular theology in North America have changed direction so dramatically in the last two or three years. In his view—though this is not his metaphor—the weather system is driven by the Christian publishing business. Over the last decade… ( | 8 comments)
The Great Convergence: the emerging church and the New Perspective
Two major developments, very broadly speaking, have impacted modern Western evangelicalism over the last decade. With regard to praxis the emerging church movement has challenged traditional patterns of church life and mission and has set out—in more or less experimental fashion—new, fresh… ( | 24 comments)
Tim Keller gets a lot right but gets hell badly wrong
Among the many responses to Kurt Willems’ defence of Rob Bell was a link to an undated article by Tim Keller on “The Importance of Hell” (thank you, Jake). Tim Keller is an outstanding pastor, but his argument about hell seems to be wrong in so many ways—exegetically, logically, theologically,… ( | 61 comments)
The rich man and Lazarus, and what the story tells us about hell
The story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31 is often cited as evidence that Jesus believed in hell as a place of conscious torment. Ben has drawn attention to it in a comment on my “Kevin DeYoung, Rob Bell, and the argument about hell” post, noting that Jesus appears to affirm “conscious… ( | 2 comments)
Kevin DeYoung, Rob Bell, and the argument about hell
I said that I would come back to what Kevin DeYoung has to say about Rob Bell and hell. To his credit, DeYoung refrains from commenting on Rob Bell’s unpublished book Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, and promises not to pick a fight over it… ( | 22 comments)