O Lord, who through spiritual discipline strengthened your servant Monnica to persevere in offering her love and prayers and tears for the conversion of her husband and of Augustine their son: Deepen our devotion, we pray, and use us in accordance with your will to bring others, even our own kindred, to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Monthly Archives: May 2012
Carolyn Arends: Defending Scripture. Literally.
From Christianity Today online. A concise and thoughtful piece on how to read the Bible.
J. I. Packer likens our relationship with God to that of a two-year-old with a father who has a brain of Einsteinian proportions. To make relationship possible, the father will have to accommodate himself to the toddler he loves. The child will know her daddy, but she won’t completely comprehend him. What the father reveals to the daughter will be true, as far as it goes. But there will always be more.
Ben Witherington: Critical Thinking—What Is it and Why is it Important to Believers?
Another fine post by Dr. Witherington, who, like Tom Wright, is not afraid to use his God-given faculties to wrestle with issues of faith and life. Worth your time to read.
You will notice that ‘critical thinking’ often comes up in the context of persons trying to decide what to believe and what not to believe. Unfortunately, ‘critical thinking’ has sometimes gotten a bad name, especially in very conservative Protestant circles because it is associated with people negatively assessing or even criticizing the Bible. This is unfortunate on various grounds.