Bible

Prayers and benedictions

Prayers from the New Testament (NET Bible) Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored, 10 may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we ourselves have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not lead us […]

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Word of faith, part 4

In this final post on the Word of faith movement, I specifically want to address the claims of D. R. McConnell in his book, A Different Gospel (updated edition 1995). He concludes on p.185: There are many peculiar ideas and practices in the Faith theology, but what merits it the label of heresy are the

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Word of Faith, part 3

One of the main teachings of the Word of Faith movement concerns one’s “confession.” This teaching goes back to E. W. Kenyon, but before looking at what he wrote, let’s consider what a leader of the movement, Kenneth E. Hagin, wrote about it in his exposition of Mark 5:25-34 in his book “Exceedingly Growing Faith,”

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Word of Faith, part 2

E. W. Kenyon is widely considered the originator of what is now called the Word of Faith. A previous series of posts showed that Kenyon’s teachings about divine healing were in line with the 19th century faith-cure movement (see here). Theological issues that arise concerning E. W. Kenyon’s writings include his theory of the atonement.

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Word of Faith, part 1

This post begins a series on the Word of Faith movement (also known as word-faith, faith, or by its critics the prosperity gospel or health and wealth gospel). The purpose of this series is to clarify the biblical teachings of this movement. Because many of its expositors lack formal theological education, it is not uncommon

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Disciples and relatives of Jesus

There are many disciples of Jesus in the Bible, but there are twelve that are particularly the disciples, or simply, the twelve. Some of these are related to each other. In the small town region of Galilee where Jesus lived that would not be surprising. What follows is a summary of the disciples and relatives

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Evangelical attributes

I have written before about evangelicals (and others) here, here, here, and here. An evangelical Christian is basically one for whom the Bible is the final authority for faith and life. This contrasts with Christians for whom the Bishop of Rome is the final authority, or Tradition. Some who claim to be Christians make religious

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The Bible and science

The Bible is true. However, the Bible does not contain all truth. And the Bible does not meet every degree of precision. No book or set of books does. Is the Bible scientifically true? The Bible is better than scientifically true. The Bible is true without qualification. Science seeks truthlikeness. If parts of science are

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Jesus’ brothers and sisters

The Gospel According to John, chapter 7:2-10 reads: 2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you

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False Gospels

The false gospel of sensitivity: Christians should always to be sensitive to other people, and never offend them in any way. It is false because Jesus offended many people. Matthew 15:12:  Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” The true gospel

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