Category Archives: Uncategorized

Posted on

It’s Okay to Expect a Miracle

The Bible is full of them and they are still happening today. Here is a fascinating Christianity Today interview with New Testament Scholar Craig Keener. Enjoy!

“Craig Keener has the brain of a scholar and the hands of an activist. The New Testament professor at Asbury Theological Seminary has authored 15 books, 70 journal articles, and more than 100 articles for religious and general interest publications. He and his wife, Médine Moussounga Keener, are deeply involved in ethnic reconciliation ministry.
In his New Testament commentaries, Keener has investigated biblical miracles. But his newest volume—Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts (Baker Academic)—focuses on contemporary miracle accounts, citing hundreds of recent occurrences.
Keener is ordained in a historic African American church and served as an associate minister before moving to Asbury’s campus in Wilmore, Kentucky. Christianity Today senior writer Tim Stafford interviewed Keener this fall.
Miracles are an unusual subject for a New Testament scholar. What led you to it?
I was going to write a footnote in my commentary on Acts, and was dealing with questions of historical reliability. Many scholars dismiss miracle stories as not historically plausible, arguing that they arose as legendary accretions.
I was familiar with [contemporary] reports of miracles taking place. There must be thousands of such reports. It was inconceivable to me that people would say eyewitnesses can’t claim to have seen such things.
What do you want to accomplish with this book?
Primarily, to challenge scholars who dismiss miracles in the Gospels as legends and not historically plausible. Eyewitnesses say these kinds of things all the time. I also want to challenge the bias that says these things can’t be supernatural. I believe God does miracles, and I don’t see why we scholars are not allowed to talk about it.
You’re trying to break open the naturalistic tradition of writing history that scholars have followed for centuries.
I understand the historical paradigms within which we work, and I’m able to work within those by bracketing out certain questions. But I wonder who made up the rule that we have to bracket out those questions, and why we are obligated to follow such rules. The way the discipline of historiography has been defined, such questions get punted to philosophy or theology.
How is the world today different from philosopher David Hume’s world, or theologian Rudolf Bultmann’s, who said that a modern man who turns on an electric light can’t possibly believe in a miracle?
In Hume’s day, nobody he knew had experienced a miracle. But there were miracle accounts….” Read the rest (click here)

Check out the book:

Think Christianly with Jonathan Morrow
Posted on

(Part 4) Answering the Toughest Questions About Homosexuality with Alan Shlemon

Our Blog series with Alan continues. This week’s challenge:  “You can’t have gay friends if you think homosexual behavior is a sin.”


A youth leader wrote me: “I would say that the issue of homosexuality is THE #1 BARRIER for teenagers…that keeps them from believing the gospel.” I can see why he said that. It’s a simple cost-benefit analysis. You can keep your faith or you can keep your friends and family. You pick. Well, the answer for many people is obvious: relationships are more important than a theological idiosyncrasy. So, they either compromise on the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality or they ditch their faith altogether. Part of the problem stems from the belief that if you keep your convictions about homosexuality, then you can’t stay in relationship with your friends and family who say they’re gay. But this isn’t the biblical view.


The New Testament doesn’t prohibit Christians from friending (I know, I know…that’s so Facebook-ish) homosexuals. Paul, writing about a sexually immoral man in 1 Corinthians 5:9-10, tells Christians that they are “not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.” Notice how Paul clarifies that we don’t have to avoid relationships with non-believers (who he calls “people of this world”). After all, we can’t influence them if we’re not involved at all.

There is a group of people that Paul warns Christians to avoid. Continuing his discussion on sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 5:11, Paul explains, “But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of a brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.” The people Paul warns us to avoid are Christians who engage in sexual immorality. Why? Because sin left unchecked within a body of believers is like cancer. It spreads and harms those around them (1 Corinthians 5:6-7).

That doesn’t mean we are to end all relationships with Christians who have committed sexual sin. Paul is talking about unrepentant Christians. People who know the biblical standard but thumb their nose at it and continue in the illicit behavior. That’s the context of 1 Corinthians 5.

It does mean that people who claim to be Christian and engage in willful, unrepentant homosexual behavior fall under the jurisdiction of this command. Friends like that can influence us and other believers in negative ways. But this rule applies to any sexual sin, not just homosexuality.

In all other circumstances, there’s no reason to choose between your faith and your friends. Keep them both so you have a chance to be a positive influence in your relationships. That’s the point of being an ambassador for Christ.

Alan Shlemon is a speaker, trainer, and author for Stand to Reason. You’ll find more articles on clear-thinking Christianity at www.str.org and www.strplace.org.

Think Christianly with Jonathan Morrow
Posted on

Epigenetics and the Image of God

I recently came across an article in the Huffington post that caught my eye. It dealt with genetics and the image of God. To be honest, I was expecting the typical reductionism that seeks to reduce humanity to our genetic information. But I was pleasantly surprised to find something else going on. Here is an excerpt:

“The reality is that recent genetics research has continued to move steadily away from any notion of genetic fatalism, highlighting the sheer complexity of the genome, and providing some fascinating examples of the ways in which our choices impact upon our own genomes. There is no gene “for” any complex human trait because in fact genes encode proteins or other types of information-containing molecules, and thousands of genes collaborate together during human development in interaction with the environment to generate the unique human individual that each person represents….Epigenetics adds further layers of variation and complexity. This refers to the chemical modifications of the DNA that cause genes to be switched on or off. It is such epigenetic modifications that generate the 220 specialized tissues of our bodies.” 

Now there are many things to comment on in this article, but let me just make two brief but crucial observations.

First, DNA is not destiny. Dr. Francis Collins (former head of the human genome project) has said as much. Genes don’t tell our whole story–environment and our choices matter. Genetic Fatalism is false.

Second, the mention of Epigenetics is important. There must be something beyond (epi = over) DNA that is doing the work that is programmed with the design-plan or body-plan of organisms. DNA is the paintbrush. But the epigenes (which don’t seem to be a physical substance) serve as the painter. It will be very interesting to watch this field develop. Some sort of organizing principle is necessary to arrange the DNA and turn the genes on and off at the “right” times. In my view, this is yet another example of design at work. Teleology was banished from biology thanks to Charles Darwin. But could these epigenes indicate that there is a design plan after all? Stay tuned…

Think Christianly with Jonathan Morrow
Posted on

The gospel is never heard in isolation

“The gospel is never heard in isolation. It is always heard against the backdrop of the cultural milieu in which one lives. A person reared in a cultural milieu in which Christianity is still seen as an intellectually viable option will display an openness to the gospel that a person who is secularized will not . . . It is for this reason that Christians who depreciate the value of apologetics because “no one comes to Christ through arguments” are so short sighted. For the value of apologetics extends far beyond one’s immediate evangelistic contact. It is a broader task of Christian apologetics to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women. It is not implausible that robust apologetics is a necessary ingredient in fostering a milieu in which evangelization can be most effectively pursued in contemporary Western society and those societies increasingly influenced by it.” – William Lane Craig

“…contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints”-Jude 3

Think Christianly with Jonathan Morrow