Scripture-ish

At the Resurrection, when our bodies come out of the ground and are reconstituted and transformed into whatever a spiritual body is so that they are fit to inhabit whatever that new reality is that we sometimes call heaven or the new heavens and new earth—when that happens, will we still maintain the sex distinctions common to our bodies now? In other words, in the Resurrection, will I be male? Th...

The Eastern Orthodox Churches regularly baptize infants by immersion—three immersions, to be precise. Why do they do this? Why not sprinkle? And why do it to babies? What do they hope to accomplish by immersing babies? And do the babies like it? That last question is easy enough to answer just be watching a few videos of the rite; I’ve included examples below. But the babies aren’t harmed, just mo...

What is your favorite scene from the classic 1986-film The Three Amigos ? It’s an impossible question, because there is a plethora of great scenes. There’s the scene where the Amigos in their underwear receive a telegram about the infamous El Guapo—excuse me, the in-famous El Guapo—there’s the scene just a moment later when Lucky Day is on top of what turns out to be a not-very-high wall and he’s...

According to the Gospel of Luke, while hanging on the cross, Jesus prayed for the people participating in his execution. Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34) Or did he? This prayer—which appears only in the Third Gospel—is absent from some important Greek manuscripts of Luke. Anyone who has studied the New Testament at a serious level understands that our English vers...

I am no expert on slavery. I am not an ethicist. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person with an interest in how Christians should think through particular issues. Here I am not trying to talk Christians out of enslaving others; I don’t reckon there’s much danger there—not now, thank God. But from a biblical perspective, slavery is a potentially tricky issue, and there have been many arg...

I return now to Eugene Boring’s book Disciples and the Bible (1997), which I recently read and wrote about here . There was so much of interest in this book that I need a second post on it. But go back to the first post for an introduction to the book and my basic—rather lengthy—take on it. Alexander Campbell There were several things I learned about Alexander Campbell. Thanks for reading Gallaghe...

Here is part 1 . Several Christian groups in America before the Civil War separated the races into different congregations, white congregations and black congregations. But the Stone-Campbell Movement aimed at Christian unity, and this emphasis for the most part ensured that they refused to separate based on race, but rather they encouraged masters and slaves to be members of the same congregation...

A few years ago, while writing a series of lessons for Bible classes at the Sherrod Ave. Church of Christ , I drafted an essay on race relations within the Restoration Movement. This is not my area of expertise, and I have relied heavily on some of the recent scholarship on this issue, which continues to expand. I found especially helpful the published dissertation of Barclay Key and the survey hi...

I recently read the book called Disciples and the Bible (1997) by Eugene Boring, owing to my interest in biblical interpretation within the Stone-Campbell Movement. Boring, who died a couple years ago, was a part of the Disciples of Christ all his life. I myself am a lifelong member of the Churches of Christ. It is obvious from reading this book that Boring was glad he was not within the Churches...

In this post—the last in the series—we cover the ancient evidence that some ancient people did, indeed, consider Psalm 2 (as we call it) the first psalm. How could they do such a thing? Either because Psalm 1 (as we call it) was considered a preface, or because Psalm 2 was considered the second half of Psalm 1. Get caught up on the series with Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , and Part 4 . Thanks for rea...

Near the end of her 1971 biographical book, The Hiding Place , Corrie ten Boom describes her time in the Ravensbrück concentration camp (northeast Germany, at the red bubble in the map below) with her sister Betsie , who was growing physically weaker by the day, though her Christian faith seemed to only grow stronger. Though Betsie was now spared heavy outdoor labor, she still had to stand the twi...

In previous posts in this series ( Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 ), I have looked at the history of numbering the psalms. The jumping off point has been Acts 13:33, where Psalm 2:7 (as we call it) was cited as coming from “the second psalm.” I have also looked at the few manuscripts that say in Acts 13:33 “the first psalm.” In this post, I expand that latter point, not looking at manuscripts of Acts bu...

Phil Connors started February 2 as a jerk, despised by everyone who knew him, and he ended the day universally beloved, a town hero. What lessons can we learn from the transformation of this local weatherman ? 1. Attitude One of the ideas illustrated clearly in the movie Groundhog Day is that nothing is inevitable about your day. You have decisions to make. You take the same day over and over … an...

This post is the second and final essay (for the moment) on the Holy Spirit. The prior post has a brief preface explaining the origins of these essays. Introduction A person without God’s Spirit is not a Christian. The New Testament is clear on this point, particularly the apostle Paul. “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Rom 8:9). In his rebuke of the Christian...

I recently wrote this brief lesson on the Holy Spirit, for a church Bible class book that will appear later this spring or summer. That book will be the 2026 edition of the Berean Series, published by HCU Press, so look for it in a few months. The theme this year is the Seven Ones of Ephesias 4:4–6, and my topic was “One Spirit.” Each author wrote two chapters, one on the overall concept (be it “f...