theology engaging culture

Bruce Little writes...

"The world does not understand the nature of its lostness. It knows something is wrong, but fails to comprehend the true nature of that lostness. Of course, on a personal level, that lostness is only remedied in Christ, but I use the term lostness to speak of the philosophical and moral calamity that has come upon western cultures.

"Increasingly we have witnessed the blunting of belief in God. Even among those who claim to believe that God exists, there is very little edge to that belief - it is weak and ineffective. This has left people without an external reference for moral direction and without a metaphysical grounding for morality. Clearly, this is a decisive point of intersection of theology and culture.

"Here the Christian message offers the missing piece deleted by naturalism - the personal, infinite Creator God who stands above nature and has spoken. This points first, not to a religious truth, but a truth about the nature of reality; that is, the world is one way if God is there, and it is another way if He is not. However, our voice in the name of truth will have little weight if our theology has no edge and we do not order our lives any differently than those without the truth."

From "Theology Engaging Culture", by Bruce Little, Director of the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture

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clement quotes hebrews

Clement of Rome wrote to the church in Corinth around AD 90. This is perhaps the same Clement, companion of Paul, mentioned in Philippians 4:3. Many hold him to be the first bishop / pope in Rome, aka St. Clement I. Clement quotes from the letter to the Hebrews. Origin suggested that Clement was in fact the writer (as transcriber or amanuensis) of Hebrews. Perhaps this letter began as a "word of exhortation" given by Paul at the synagogue (Heb 13:22; cf Acts 13:15) which then became a circular letter for the churches. Other possible authors of Hebrews include Luke, Barnabas, or Apollos. The theology is Pauline, but the transcriber is obviously second-generation (Heb. 2:3-4). At any rate, this early church leader in Rome, is already quoting Hebrews in his letter in AD 90: CHAPTER 36 ALL BLESSINGS ARE GIVEN TO US THROUGH CHRIST This is the way, beloved, in which we find our Savior, even Jesus Christ, the High Prie...

Howard Hendricks on OT books chronology

When I was in seminary, Howard Hendricks (aka "Prof") gave us a little card with the books of the OT chronologically arranged. The scanned copy I have was a bit blurry and I wanted to make something like this available for our church class in OT theology ("Story of Redemption"). A few minor edits and here it is...

sword and trowel

"From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail. And the leaders stood behind the whole house of Judah, who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. And each of the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me." (Nehemiah 4:16-18 ESV) The great London preacher, Charles Spurgeon, published a monthly magazine called The Sword and The Trowel; A record of combat with sin and of labour for the Lord. It was published from 1865 to 1892. The cover of the journal had a drawing taken from Nehemiah 4, which included both a trowel (representing the work) and a sword (representing the fight). The sword was necessary to protect what the men with trowels were building. These citizen-soldier-builders would successfully complete the wall aroun...

my burg

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