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Friday, June 02, 2023

Steve Hays ebooks 3

Once again, many thanks to Led by the Shepherd for his fine work in getting out a new set of Steve's ebooks! The previous collection is here: "Steve Hays ebooks 2".

Thursday, June 01, 2023

Apologetics And Psalm 102:18

I've occasionally written about Biblical passages that are relevant to apologetics, but are often neglected in that context. Another one to consider is Psalm 102:18: "This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord." The focus on God is good, it reflects the value of writing (which has become more important as a result of factors like the rise in literacy in the modern world and modern technology), and it reflects the value of benefiting people we aren't interacting with face to face ("a people yet to be created") in relationship with a God we don't see face to face. The passage is valuable in our cultural context, given the derogatory, dismissive comments so many people make about writing, especially writing on the internet, and any interaction with other people that isn't face to face.

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Try To Persuade

In a tribute to Tim Keller after his death, Michael Kruger mentioned an article he'd written about how persuasion is a missing element in modern sermons. It's also missing in a lot of other contexts. There's a major problem with Christians in general, not just pastors, not trying to persuade people as much as they should. Most people don't get involved much in discussions about religious issues (or ethics, politics, etc.). Among those who do get involved, they often state their position without offering much or any support for it. The people who are making a significant effort to not only discuss religion, but also do it persuasively are a small percentage of the population. That needs to change.

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Quadratus As A Supplement To Papias

Papias is one of the early church figures often made out to have been more influential than he actually was, often blamed for originating or popularizing ideas that are opposed by the people doing the blaming. Others will blame Paul, Irenaeus, Eusebius, or whoever else. But Papias is one of the individuals most often brought up. Supposedly, he originated the traditional gospel authorship attributions or is said to have had a major role in popularizing the attributions or the gospels themselves, for example. In addition to being blamed for allegedly originating or popularizing supposedly bad things, he's often dismissed as too unintelligent to be reliable, too discredited by false claims that he made, and so on.

I've written a lot in response to such criticisms of Papias: whether he was a disciple of John the son of Zebedee, whether he had that relationship with some other John instead, Papias' influence on gospel authorship attributions, his alleged gullibility, his material on Judas' death, etc. There are many other posts in our archives on such issues, such as the ones included here, in my collection of links addressing skeptical myths about the church fathers. What I want to do in the remainder of this post is discuss another line of evidence that can be cited against objections like the ones mentioned above.