peterlumpkins.com

Joshua Harris rethinks his views in bestseller, I Kissed Dating Good-bye

graphic source First published in 1997 and updated in 2003, Joshua Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye still garners heavy sales on Amazon.com where readers have piled up almost 877 reviews over the last two decades, reviews averaging 4/5 stars. Overall, that's just under one review per week since publication. Pretty impressive for a 21 year old author, I'd say. The relationship perspective between male and female which Harris embraced and non-negotiably insisted constituted the biblical view was what he called "courting" rather than "dating," a fairly provocative notion in evangelical... Read more →

Ron Vietti and Jim Crews' critics on Exposing Calvinism

Ron Vietti and Jim Crews (Vegas Campus) are co-pastors at Valley Bible Fellowship in Bakersfield, CA. Being the largest church in town, their recent exposé on Calvinism caused some Calvinists to experience complete meltdown. Vietti predicted with amazing accuracy the chatter splatter he would personally receive because of the stance he would take. But rather than focus on what some of the more hackneyed critics had to say, I'd like to turn our attention to an open letter written by Chad Vegas,1 Lead and Founding Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church... Read more →

Scholarly skepticism continues toward the "Jesus' Wife Fragment" even as Smithsonian plans to air positive documentary May 5

In the latest edition of The Weekly Standard, Charlotte Allen, author of The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus, queries whether the investigation into the so-called "Jesus' Wife Fragment" has after all raised more questions concerning the fragment's authenticity than it's answered. Entitled "The Wife of Jesus Tale," Allen writes of the scientific tests on the papyrus itself: [T]he scientific results have raised more questions than they’ve answered, especially within the cohort of scholars who were already convinced that the fragment was a modern forgery. For one thing,... Read more →

Janet Mefferd on Joe Carter's 'stop slandering Christ's bride' corrective--'an unwarranted scolding discouraging Christians from speaking on issues of neglect'

On Friday of last week, Joe Carter, Southern Baptists' new ERLC1 Director of Communications posted a piece entitled "Stop Slandering Christ's Bride" which sparked considerable fire in the comments section of Carter's post. Overwhelmingly, Carter's post logged negative responses toward his piece. In it Carter basically argued that since no one knows whether a particular issue is being addressed or not in the 350,000+ congregations in America, they need to stop suggesting they do by claiming the issue does matter and the church should speak up about it. Apparently according... Read more →

James White critiques Ronnie Rogers' book, “Reflections of a Disenchanted Calvinist” by Peter Lumpkins

UPDATE: As expected, James White responded to this piece on his follow-up "Radio Free Geneva" podcast. Well, let me be clear: it really wasn't a response to this piece so much as an acknowledgment of it. During the first few minutes, he talks about "almost forgetting" about old "Petey" (And, we want to assure James White we've not forgotten about him, either!) Then, he and Rich Pierce ridiculed the video I put up because of the number of views, etc. comparing my traffic to his. What a hoot! Like giddy,... Read more →

Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20 by guest contributor James Snapp, Jr.

A fairly hot topic of discussion when I was in seminary (1980s) was whether the longer ending of Mark's gospel was authentic or a later scribal addition >>> Perhaps the discussion escalated among Southern Baptists during the 1980s because of the flag under which the Conservative Resurgence marched ahead to battle--inerrancy. Whatever the reason for the arisen interest, there has been continual discussion among textual critics concerning many passages in the New Testament. And to be quite honest, perhaps no passage of Holy Writ draws more unity from the broadest... Read more →

Update on Rick Warren's bridge to Mecca by Peter Lumpkins

On March 1st, I posted a piece entitled "Rick Warren's bridge to Mecca" tenatively concluding that if Jim Hinch, journalist with the Orange County Register, characterized Warren correctly, "perhaps it's time to officially end any left-over love affairs with Saddleback"1 >>> A day later, Ed Stetzer, VP at Lifeway Resources, wrote a stinging rebuke of those he called "watchbloggers"2 for presumably jumping the gun on an apparent hit-piece on Rick Warren composed by secular journalist (i.e., Jim Hinch). Lifeway's VP wrote: Once again, watchbloggers are accusing Rick Warren of heresy.... Read more →

Helpful Study Links by Peter Lumpkins

Below are some helpful study links....Maybe... Be warned, however. The content on these sites is for serious readers only. No blogger dumbing down the messy details. Nor are all papers biblically or baptistically sound. Also, some are conservative, some on the extreme theological left. Yet most represent scholarly presentations nonetheless (NOTE: some journals are now defunct but contents are still available. Also, some have only partial availability). Save them in your bookmarks or download the papers to searchable pdf files. And, the best part???............................ All content is free! Journal of... Read more →

The Case for the Real Jesus

New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III profiles Lee Strobel's, The Case for the Real Jesus. The professor gained permission to post a sizable section of the work, most notable because it is Strobel's conversation with textual critic, Dan Wallace. Wallace makes some major points in the discussion especially as he engages some of the misinformation dispensed by Professor Bart Erhman, the media-appointed missionary for correcting the dubious errors of the masses who are hopelessly deceived into believing the Bible may actually be truthful in all it affirms. Of course, this... Read more →

Eliaphet Nott's First Shot: Wine in the Hebrew Bible

Eliphalet Nott, whom I introduced earlier in this series, offered in his major contribution to a theology of wine, an extended discussion on a Biblical understanding of wine. And, while Mr. Nott dealt with wine in both Old and New Testaments as well as what he dubbed "An Inquiry Extended to Profane Writers" (Lecture IV), we must be content to take in only sections, so to speak, in order to avoid information overload. A note about the documentation for this essay on Nott's theology of wine is surely in order.... Read more →

Inerrancy: A Recent View Among Baptists?

It is commonly asserted by Inerrancy critics that the view of inspiration known as Inerrancy is embraced only recently among Southern Baptists. The following essay entitled "The Inspiration of the Scriptures" is by the Reverend J. B. Jeter (1802-1880), then Pastor of First Baptist Church, Richmond, VA. This essay stands as one in a collection entitled "Baptist Doctrines: Being an Exposition in a Series of Essays by Representative Baptist Ministers of the Distinctive Points of Baptist Faith and Practice, edited by Rev. Charles A. Jenkens of North Carolina, St. Louis:... Read more →

The Sacred Scripture Our Just Confines

Though not known so well, one of the most contentious debates early English Baptists faced was with Quakers*. In 1672-1674, Baptists and Quakers brutally squared off on at least four different occasions that, in at least one of those meetings, 3,000 people jammed into the meeting house and stuck around for almost six hours..>>> On October 9, 1674, at the Barbican in London (Baptist), the crowd jammed in to cheer on their favorite team. For the Quakers stood the legendary William Penn along with the equally formidable George Whitehead. Also... Read more →