A three-way fight
This is an interesting reflection on our cultural moment by way of Charles Taylor’s book A Secular Age.
Does empowerment come from boudoir photoshoots?
This one – particularly looking at it through the lens of sexual abuse survivors – says no. But it points to a place where deliverance and empowerment can be found.
Sermon prep: not how long, but where?
This one is right. Sermon prep can’t be exclusively office-based work.
Did David rape Bathsheba: a close reading of the relevant texts
‘At some point over the last few years, the interpretation of the story of David and Bathsheba became a matter of frequent contention on social media. Every few months, some tweet will revive ‘Bathsheba discourse’ and several days of heated argument will follow. At the heart of the dispute is the question of whether David raped Bathsheba. For some on both sides of the dispute, answers to this question have come to function as tribal or theological shibboleths, indicative of contrasting and often opposing stances regarding crises of sexual abuse and the (mis)handling of them within churches.’
Infant baptism and the Red Sea crossing
This one starts with a strawman (see if you can spot it in the opening paragraph). Thereafter, it makes the case for how infant baptism is, indeed, in scripture. I am not at all convinced by its reasoning, but see what you think.
What does ‘love your enemies’ not mean?
‘A pastor friend used to say, “A whole Bible makes a whole Christian.” His point was that we need all the Scriptures and can’t rip out one command and make it our banner verse, neglecting all others. Jesus’s words about loving our enemies are a beautiful and difficult command we’re called to follow. However, reading other texts reveals it doesn’t have to be put at odds with a zeal for justice, righteous anger, or civil justice that protects innocent people.’
From the archive: If God desires all people to be saved, why aren’t they?
‘God apparently desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. But we are aware that all people are not saved and do not come to the knowledge of the truth. So, what are we to make of this?’
Hi Stephen, I read the ‘From the archive’ article and I’m not sure your illustration is valid. The reason you can’t satisfy all your financial desires is finite resources, whereas God is not restricted by anything outside of Himself. He could save all people in a way that didn’t compromise His glory – all people that are saved are saved in such a way that all glory goes to Him. In fact, one could argue that His glory would be maximised by saving all people! Option three may be correct (though I lean towards option 2) but I don’t think your argument for it is convincing.
Thanks for your comment.
I agree God isn’t limited by anything outside himself, but his will and priorities are within himself.
The problem you have with what you’ve said is that God’s glory is necessarily diminished if everybody isn’t saved and yet saving them all would maximise his glory. God has, therefore, created a world in which his glory is diminished because of it. But this is not the biblical witness. God has created a world that brings him maximal glory such that all things redound to the glory of God. Your view of the actual world we are in, and yet God’s glory being maximised by saving all, diminishes God’s power and glory in reality.
The paedobaptism article is a particularly egregious example of mangling out of context Scripture. I’ve written something here https://faithroot.com/2025/01/19/more-mangled-bible-reading-in-support-of-paedobaptism/
The argument in the article ‘Infant baptism and the Red Sea Crossing’ fails completely on one error. Under the Mosaic (Old) Covenant, membership of God’s chosen people was gained by biological descent. If you had paternal descent from Jacob, you were a member of the People of Israel, so the covenant sign could validly be applied to children.
Under the Messianic (New) Covenant, membership of God’s chosen people isn’t by virtue of biological descent, but is by faith – the children of a Christian father are not automatically Christians, and there is no justification by proxy faith. So the statement “Given that they are the children of professing Christian parents, they have right to the sign of the covenant.” is blatantly false.
The entire screed of meticulously detailed and referenced argument (in which it appears that the weight of scholarship is used to buttress a theoretical structure whose foundations are faulty) falls apart because of this failure to recognise the way that inclusion in God’s Covenant people has changed between the Old and New Covenants.