How to avoid bias when arriving at conclusions in life…

How to avoid bias when arriving at conclusions in life… Short answer: YOU CAN’T! Sorry for the loud ALL CAPS but the gist of this post is that we can’t avoid our bias when we arrive at conclusions so feel free to skip reading and move on to more pressing matters. But… Long answer: Let …

The Missing Page in Scripture

As we were sitting in evening worship this past Sunday Madelyn handed me a ruffled piece of paper and said this, "Daddy, this is torn from your bible!" I looked and it was a missing page that had torn out of my bible. All of Scripture is important but what was missing as parts of …

Psalm 14 – Who is the fool?

In my morning reading I came across a familiar passage and wanted to share it with you and some of the thoughts I wrote down in my journal. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. Psalm 14:1 (ESV) Perhaps …

Answering and not answering fools

Proverbs 26:5 reads, "Answer a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes." I often heard this quoted by preachers, teachers and students who are apologetically inclined to defend the truth against the skeptics and naysayers of our society.  There is some merit to answering a fool to his …

Song of Songs #1

I wrote a post a few months ago about sex ("Sex is Great!") and the church's need to have a theology on sex based on Scripture and a great springboard for such a discussion is the book Song of Songs in the Old Testament.  I am beginning a series of posts based on that book …

Bibles and Consumerism

I was looking on my twitter feed and noticed a tweet about this new bible called the Green Bible which is the latest edition to a string of study bibles which aims to help the reader grow closer to God.  Consider the publisher's promotional statement for the Green Bible: The Green Bible will equip and …

Liberal vs. Conservative

I have been labeled every status known to churches:  staunch conservative, fence-rider, bleeding liberal.  I am not sure what my identity is anymore as people have just called me everything.  I am not a fan of those terms for one reason: they are not biblical.  I don't find the word "conservative" in any passage of …

Overcoming the Open-Forum Fallacy

The fallacy of expertise is the idea that there has to be an expert to explain everything because there has to be an answer.  I call it the "Open Forum Fallacy."  When I attended Freed-Hardeman University the highlight of the year for bible majors was the FHU Lectureship.  The highlight of the FHU lectureship was …

Pick and Choose

I want your opinion on something that is controversial in the churches of Christ so please feel free to comment on it.  A book that has probed my thoughts more than any other book has in a long time is Scot McKnight's Blue Parakeet.  It is a book designed to help readers rethink how they …

New Quote from my Readings….

Chew on this for a little while!  Whenever we pick up the bible, read it, put it down, and say, "That's just what I thought," we are probably in trouble.  The technical term for that is "proof-texting."  Ellen F. Davis, "Teaching the Bible Confessionally in the Church," in The Art of Reading Scripture, Eds. Ellen …