晩晩当際際夊消消夊2023

Skip to main content

About the Blog

The Good Book Blog, a resource from the faculty of Talbot School of Theology, features articles that explore contemporary ideas from the perspective of the Bible the Good Book including topics such as apologetics, biblical studies, theology, philosophy, spiritual formation, ministry and leadership. Find out more about what sets Talbot apart and how it prepares Christian leaders through its degree programs.

 

Subscribe

RSS Feed


 

  • Sean McDowell — 

    For the past two decades, I have been speaking, teaching, writing, and counseling students on a variety of issues. Yet in the past few years, no issue has become more critical to address with students than pornography. And yet, sadly, many parents, youth workers, teachers, and other adults simply ignore it ...

  • Octavio Esqueda — 

    Todos los viernes en la tarde un grupo de estudiantes y maestros de la universidad cristiana en donde trabajo se re炭nen a jugar basquetbol. Hace unas semanas fui a jugar con ellos y lo que parec鱈a un d鱈a normal se convirti坦 en una experiencia que me ha impactado y que tambi辿n ha tenido el mismo efecto en much鱈simas personas. Despu辿s de jugar por m叩s de una hora uno de mis alumnos del doctorado se dispon鱈a a irse a su casa cuando le ped鱈 que me esperara unos minutos porque necesitaba hablar con 辿l. Primero se sent坦 y despu辿s se recost坦 en el c辿sped a un lado de la cancha en lo que terminaba de jugar mi partido. En cuanto el juego termin坦 fui a hablar con 辿l y en ese momento me di cuanta que estaba inm坦vil, sin respirar y con una apariencia p叩lida y descolorida. Inmediatamente ped鱈 ayuda y mientras algunos lo trataban de resucitar yo llam辿 a los servicios de emergencias. Gracias a Dios lograron que respirara otra vez y se lo llevaron a la sala de emergencias de un hospital cercano ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear Dr. Craig I was reading the part of your book "Time and Eternity" that talks about perdurantism, and I have a question over your objection to the Perdurantist's view of personal consciousness. You claim that on Perdurantism, personal continuity from moment to moment is an illusion and that they believe that I was a different person one second ago than I am now, which you claim to be absurd. However, it appears to me that by the same token, we can argue against Presentism, because Presentism states that only the present exists ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    I love stories. And I know that you do too. Whether its a captivating novel, an enthralling movie, or an anecdote from a friend, human beings love stories. We love to tell them and we love to listen to them. In fact, we can't resist them. In The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall says it beautifully: Human minds yield hopelessly to the suction of story. No matter how hard we concentrate, not matter how deep we dig in our heels, we just cant resist the gravity of alternate worlds.[1] Good public speakers know that the best way to engage an audience is through storytelling. Whenever I feel like Im losing an audience, I quickly tell a story and theyre right back with me! ...

  • John McKinley — 

    In part three of this series, I will present the third biblical metaphor revealing the Holy Spirit: oil. We need to discern what the metaphor is, and what its meanings are within the biblical and ANE framework. I will be drawing some details from the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. My goal is to recognize patterns of meaning that may be intended to expand our understanding of the Holy Spirits presence and action in subtle ways hinted at through metaphors.

  • Sean McDowell — 

    The resurrection of Jesus Christ is either one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted on the minds of human beingsor it is the most remarkable fact of history. My father has often shared these words to me in person, and hes written them in his books. The older I get, the more I realize theyre unmistakably true. Theres no middle ground with the resurrection of Jesus. Either it is a colossal fabrication or the most important event in history ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear Dr. Craig, I am currently a high school student extremely interested in both philosophy and theology. My question is one that has puzzled me for a long time, and I believe that if there is anyone who could explain the answer in an understandable way, that person would be you. To be clear, I am a Christian and affirm the existence of God. In a theistic view, why does God exist? Did He choose to exist, and to have the attributes that He does? For example, did He choose to exist in a Trinitarian form? ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    ... If the bones of Jesus were found, then Christianity would be false. Paul said, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins (1 Corinthians 15:17, NASB). Some religions may make untestable claims about reality, but Christianity makes claims about real events in history that can be tested. Lets put it to the test ...

  • Karin Stetina — 

    This past fall a friend shared an article from the New York Times entitled The Microcomplaint: Nothing Too Small to Complain About. It was amusing to read about all the silly complaints that celebrities tweeted to the world. Everything from the misery of only decaf coffee being available to what the writer deemed a complaintbrag of not being able to buy a Persian rug with cherub imagery. This habit, however, does not appear to be limited to celebrities. Cruise ship directors have received equally amusing complaints. For example, one passenger reported that the sea was too loud while another passenger grumbled about there being no celebrities on the Celebrity Cruise ship. In the past complaining was something often reserved for private ears. Today, however, it is not only acceptable to publically complain about the littlest inconvenience, it is often encouraged. It has even been identified as a communication style, particularly of Americans, who frequently see themselves as victims. Are Christians exempt from microcomplaining or are we part of the culture of complaint? What does Scripture have to say about complaining? ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Question I work at an aerospace firm, and I always assumed that if I were to be convinced of God's existence, it would probably be by something like the teleological argument. The appearance of design in the universe itself and so many things therein is truly intriguing, but has never been enough to persuade me. I understand why theists find it compelling, but I currently still find the counter case sufficiently compelling to remain unpersuaded ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Question A 17 year old Indian from the Middle East who's a big fan of your work for Christ. My question deals with recent discoveries in physics. How would the new discovery of gravitational waves affect Lorentzian relativity, the Kalaam argument and the A-theory of time? Xavi India

  • Sean McDowell — 

    Recently my newest book, A New Kind of Apologist, was released. One of the unique chapters, written by my friend Mark Mittelberg, is about how to motivate people in the church to care about apologetics. Enjoy the selections below in which Mark focuses on equipping church leaders and motivating church members ...

  • Mark Saucy — 

    This weeks conference, Israel and the Church: A Troubled Past and Glorious Future, hosted by 晩晩当際際夊消消夊2023 and Chosen People Ministries, provided yet another opportunity for me to think big picture. As most of us, I suppose, the cares of daily tasksemails, news cycles, family, work-ministry, church-ministryI can get so buried in the daily that I lose the plan! By plan I mean the narrative that God has written for the world. A narrative that first rescues a fallen creation and then restores it to the flourishing fullness God made it for ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear Dr. Craig, The Moral Argument seems to have a flaw. Premise 1 has a semantic problem. 1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. What if we can imagine a supernatural, God-like entity, that is in some important respect distinct from God as such, which could also ground objective moral values? Perhaps omnibenevolent, but not omnipresent, say? ...

  • Joanne Jung — 

    ... Learning Management Systems (LMS) continue to make video conference sessions more user friendly with clear, strong connections conducive to conversations without video or audio delays. Many LMSs have this feature built into them, thus eliminating the need to use a program outside of the learning platform that instructors and students would have to download and install separately on their computers ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Hello, my name is Lana, and I took a course at Purdue called "Metaphysics." I saw you at your debate with Alex Rosenberg. Anyways, And I'm glad I took the course, but I didn't take nominalism, or as you dub it, anti-realism, very seriously. I came out of it being a very strict platonist, but then I re read the gospel of John and I realized I was in huge trouble, I came to all the same conclusions about platonism as you did, I was a platonist, until now. So I floundered about wondering what the truth could be. I didn't take divine conceptualism very seriously at first because it was introduced to me initially by Berkleyianists, and I really do loathe idealism. I don't think it's compatible with Christianity. But I gave it another look and realized divine conceptualism can work with a worldview rejecting Berkley and his type. I don't remember the course too well so if I make a mistake that's why, and maybe I don't understand the same jargon but you did answer my question somewhere out there, I need some guidance ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    Since the release of The Passion, faith-based films have been coming out from Hollywood at an increased rate. On the one hand, faith-based films are often cheesy and unrealistic. On the other hand, many lose the spirit of the original story and are utterly inaccurate (Noah, anyone?) With a bit of hesitancy, my wife and I went to see Risen last night. All things considered, we were both pleasantly surprised! ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    In my recent book The Fate of the Apostles, I examine the claim that the apostles died as martyrs for their faith. One apostle who often gets overlooked is James, the brother of Jesus. While James wasnt one of the Twelve, there is good reason to believe he was not a believer of Jesus during his public ministry (Mark 3:20-35; John 7:5), he saw the risen Jesus (1 Cor. 15:7), and became the key leader in the Jerusalem church (Gal. 2:9; Acts 21:17-26) ...

  • Joanne Jung — 

    ... Collaborative learning focuses on both content and the process of learning. C.S. Lewis stated, It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can (Lewis, 1958). Participation, dialogue, and reciprocity are key elements necessary for students to sense and know they are included in something greater than themselves. Meaningful dialogue in a variety of formats inspires critical thinking and reflection, combats mental inertia, and fosters transformation. Students may come curious, but they leave inspired ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dr. Craig, Thank you for your diligent work for the kingdom of God. I hope you understand and appreciate how your work has impacted the faith of countless people across the world. My question has to do with the concept of God in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. I am sure that you are aware of the current controversy over the "same God" comments of the professor at Wheaton College. As you can imagine this has caused a firestorm of debate between theologians, pastors and preachers. I understand from your work that you would say that while Muslims and Christians might worship the same God historically (the God of Abraham and Moses), their concept of God is fundamentally different (please correct me if I misunderstood your view). This refutes the "same God" idea because at the very core we worship a very different God even if the religions share a common background ...

  • Joanne Jung — 

    ... Character formation begins with a proper understanding of the heart and soul. The heart is often misrepresented in American culture, for the heart has much more to do with how we live than what we might be led to believe. Perhaps the closest we can come to this idea is when we speak of doing something whole-heartedly. In Proverbs 4:23, believers are warned: Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life (HCSB). Mentioned nearly one thousand times in Gods word, it is clear that the heart is important to God. Three components make up the human heart: mind, emotion, and will (Coe, 2011). The mind, the thinking function of the heart, is where our thoughts are received, processed, and formed. Emotions are tied to thoughts as we have feelings about all thoughts. The will is an expression of what we actually do (or do not do) with our thoughts. Components of the heartmind, emotion, and willare often examined separately but were created to function together. They make up who we are. Our lives are our hearts in motion because the heart is the control center of the soul ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear Dr Craig, In your work on abstract objects, you have mentioned that there could exist necessary beings which exist "ab alio", that is, dependent for their existence on other necessary beings. My question is this: Let's suppose for the argument's sake that such ab alio necessary beings exist, is their existence an exception (or somehow relevant) to the premise of the teleological argument according to which everything which exists exist in virtue of a necessity of its own nature or in virtue of an external cause? ...

  • Joe Hellerman — 

    This year we are studying 1 Corinthians at Oceanside Christian Fellowship. I preached the message on 6:12-20, with the above title. I began by explaining Pauls foundational principles in verse 12: (1) not all things are helpful, and (2) I will not be dominated by anything. The rest of the sermon outlined the Five Good Reasons (subtitle, above) as follows ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    Dear Dr Craig, I have noticed of late that Richard Dawkins often states that Neo-Darwinism is non-random. Dawkins recently repeated this line in an interview on a Scandinavian talk show Skavlan when asked, "What is the most common misconception about Evolution?" His response was, "That it is a theory of random chance. It obviously can't be theory of random chance. If it was a theory of random chance it couldn't possibly explain why all animals and plants are so beautifully ... well designed." He goes on to say that, "[W]hat Darwin did was to discover the only known alternative to random chance which is natural selection". A few years ago he made similar comments on an Australian television show Q&A where he said, "There's random genetic variation and non-random survival and non-random reproduction". He goes on to say that, "that is quintessentially non-random" ...

  • Octavio Esqueda — 

    Hace un par de semanas estuve en Guatemala para iniciar un curso semestral en un programa doctoral en educaci坦n teol坦gica. Este programa es singular en Latinoam辿rica y ense単ar en 辿l me da la oportunidad de convivir con l鱈deres de diferentes pa鱈ses y tambi辿n aprender de ellos. A pesar de que este doctorado se enfoca principalmente en la educaci坦n teol坦gica formal a trav辿s de universidades y seminarios, la realidad es que todo nuestro entorno deber鱈a tener un enfoque teol坦gico porque Dios es el creador del universo y el centro fundamental de toda la existencia. Por esto el conocimiento de Dios o educaci坦n teol坦gica nos deber鱈a ayudar a pensar teol坦gicamente sobre todas las 叩reas de la vida ...