Resource review I have taken up stands on both sides of the evolution and creation issue. As an avowed atheist in middle and early high school I liked to pick fights with Christians specifically over evolution. For me, at the time, the fantastical interpretive hoops of a young earth creationist perspective simply didn’t make sense….
What to do when you don’t have lots, wet fleeces, or gut feelings about what to do next. The beginning of a year is a time for resolutions and goals. A time to make a plan and set out on a new path; a time to make decisions and stick to them in order to…
You were lied to about Christmas. I am willing to bet that the Christmas pageant you’re used to featured a very important character: The Innkeeper. This heartless soul was so concerned with his inn having no-vacancy that he turned away the mother and father of Jesus. Leaving them to give birth to the messiah rejected…
When I was a kid I lied to my grandmother every time I saw her. For as long as I can remember my parents, siblings and I would go on a road trip to visit my Grandmother in Wichita, Kansas every summer. Each time we went, when we neared the end of our visit, my…
I used to hear the terms “Holy Land” or “Lands of the Bible” and immediately associate them with Israel and Palestine, maybe Egypt for good measure. I’ve come to realize that the biblical text gives primary setting to its stories in an area some four thousand miles across including parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Palestine,…
Today, we take for granted our ability to have the biblical text at our fingertips – almost anywhere. According to one study, 89% of American households own at least one bible and the average American household owns 4.1 bibles (not even to mention the digital copies we carry in our pockets and backpacks). This wide-access to…
How does modern church missions teach us to read the bible with greater clarity? You’ve probably been on a “missions trip” before. Studies as early as 2009 were indicating that 35% of all American Young Adults (age 25 and under) had either participated in or planned to participate in a service trip in the next three years….
What Jeremiah can teach us about the stresses of Modern Life In the first half of the 6th century BCE a bunch of Judean officials let their anxiety get the better of them. Stressed out and overworked they betrayed their best hope for salvation, the Prophet Jeremiah, and left him for dead at the bottom of a…
In this eighteen minute video, I talk with author and pastor, Brad Gray about his new book Make Your Mark; Getting Right what Samson got Wrong. His book takes a new look at the character of Samson from the book of Judges. Using all of the archaeological, cultural and linguistic data available to him, Gray, shows…
We had the “2014 Largent Family Reunion” two weeks ago in Minnesota. The running joke for the entire reunion was that my wife and I, as the sole surviving son, had to “get busy” producing a son to carry on the Largent family name. Things haven’t changed much in three and half thousand years. Indeed,…
For most of us, Judas Iscariot is the great villain of the passion narrative, but for Jesus, Judas was the guest of honor. We know this because of one seemingly innocuous detail that every gospel writer chose to include when discussing the last days of Jesus. At the Last supper, Jesus and the twelve disciples…
