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The Good Book Blog, a resource from the faculty of Talbot School of Theology, features articles that explore contemporary ideas from the perspective of the Bible — the “Good Book” — including topics such as apologetics, biblical studies, theology, philosophy, spiritual formation, ministry and leadership. Find out more about what sets Talbot apart and how it prepares Christian leaders through its degree programs.

 

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  • Sean McDowell — 

    As a parent of three kids, I am frequently trying to help them best navigate cultural voices vying for their hearts and minds. This is why I am thrilled about the new book, A Practical Guide to Culture: Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today’s World, by Brett Kunkle and John Stonestreet. They are both my good friends and ministry partners. But most importantly, they have written an excellent book. If you work with students in any capacity—parent, youth worker, teacher, mentor—this is a book you need to get. Read it, study it, and pass it on to other youth influencers. Here's a quick interview to give you a taste of how to help students best navigate culture ...

  • Octavio Esqueda — 

    ​Cada año la importante revista Time selecciona a la persona que ha tenido más influencia en el mundo durante el año. La persona del año 2017 ha sido acertadamente y sin lugar a dudas las mujeres que rompieron el silencio y cuyas voces empezaron el movimiento #MeToo (yo también). Estas valientes personas han hecho públicas sus desgarradoras historias de abuso y acoso sexual las cuales abarcan todos los segmentos de la sociedad y lamentablemente también de las iglesias.

  • Inspiration and the Occasional NT Epistles

    Weekly Q & A with Dr. William Lane Craig

    William Lane Craig — 

    This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. Dr. Craig, First I would like to thank you for your tireless efforts to propel Christianity toward intellectual relevance for so many of the lost. I have always found it so helpful and encouraging.

  • John McKinley — 

    Imagine in the year 2047 that anti-aging therapies have developed so far that wealthy people not only cease aging, but some have begun to reverse. A few have even started to celebrate reverse birthdays in accordance with their rehabilitated age. Once sixty-seven, Sam now marks his age at forty-two. With the turn around he has re-entered life with friends of his newfound youth ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    When I was a full-time high school teacher, one of my favorite assignments was to have my students develop a creative project to illustrate what would follow if moral relativism were true. Students wrote stories, composed songs, made short films, and more. My all-time favorite was a short poem written by a high school senior. She captures the moral absurdity that would follow if morality were truly relative to the individual ...

  • Does God Have a Specific Marriage Partner for you?

    Weekly Q & A with Dr. William Lane Craig

    William Lane Craig — 

    This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. Hi Dr. Craig, I'd like to probe you more on your views of divine providence and marriage in particular. I believe you've said that God has a specific marriage partner intended for each person (unless perhaps that person is somehow called to celibacy) ...

  • Joanne Jung — 

    We are made in the image of God, an image that is tarnished yet has survived the fall. Who we are is intrinsically connected to who God is. Our spiritual depth, our being able to know ourselves, is linked to knowing God and who He is. This is where God’s word comes into the equation, because the Bible is one of the primary ways God discloses himself—what He’s done, what He’s doing, and what He promises to do. Spiritual depth is far more than how much you know the Scriptures or even how well you know it. It is knowing the Word of God and the God of the Word, the book and its author. We come away with a better, more thought-filled understanding of what He is like, what He says, what He expects of those who bear His image, and why, and how He empowers those who follow His son Jesus ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    This past Tuesday I took my 13-year old son to visit the newly-opened Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. If I had to pick one word to describe it, the word would be impressive. Sure, I am an apologetics professor at Talbot School of Theology and am naturally interested in the history and cultural impact of the Bible. But I went with high expectations, and the Museum exceeded them ...

  • Finding a Confident Christian Faith

    Weekly Q & A with Dr. William Lane Craig

    William Lane Craig — 

    This is the weekly Q & A blog post by our Research Professor in Philosophy, Dr. William Lane Craig. You make a distinction, which I accept, between “knowing” and “showing” that something is true. But the thing is that I don’t know that the Resurrection is true, therefore, assuming it is, I need to be shown this. The problem is that, from the standpoint of the skeptical but open-minded seeker, as I consider myself to be, when looked at dispassionately the historical evidence is, while perhaps sufficient for corroboration of what one already believes, for the rest of us fragmentary and unconvincing ...

  • Klaus Issler — 

    For most of the history of the church, church leaders understood that the Old Testament taught a complete ban on any interest on loans. As noted in Part 1, the subject of this study is the matter of loans to fellow Israelites who had the potential for paying the loan back, not the topic of charity to the poor. Three important passages in the Pentateuch or Torah guide the main teaching on loans and interest in the Old Testament ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    Guilty as charged. Christianity has its fair share of judgmental and intolerant people. I have no interest in covering up the misbehavior of Christians. But before you are tempted to dismiss the evidence for the Christian faith because of Christian intolerance, keep something in mind ...

  • The Future of the North American Church?

    Weekly Q & A with Dr. William Lane Craig

    William Lane Craig — 

    ... I take your question, Uli, not because I have much to say by way of answer to your desperate plea, but rather because your letter serves to warn Christian brothers and sisters of what awaits the church in North America if present trends continue unchecked ...

  • Klaus Issler — 

    For much of church history, pastoral leaders believed the Old Testament taught that no interest should be charged on any loans. The care and protection for the Israelite working poor was the main rationale for such a prohibition that no interest should be charged on such loans. “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him” (Exod 22:25). Before we go too much further, let me state the obvious. What we are discussing here is the matter of loans that were offered to fellow Israelites who had the potential for paying the loan back. One doesn’t offer a loan to someone who has no means of paying it back; in that case one offers charity. The subject of charity is a different one with which the Old Testament makes provision through other means (e.g., gleaning [Lev. 19:9-10], sabbatical year [Exod 23:10-11], and triennial tithes [Deut 14:28-29]). The topic of this blog series is about lending, not charity ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    J.P. Moreland is one of the top 50 most influential living philosophers. He is a distinguished professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, and is one of my all-time favorite teachers. Today he is a colleague and a good friend. I recently had the opportunity to interview him about his soon-to-be-released book: Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Critique ...

  • Joanne Jung — 

    It is a sad but accurate appraisal that in our contemporary society we are held captive by television viewing, commercials, and the Internet. We are victims of a repertoire of fast-food menus, instant gratification, and overcrowded, conflicting, and unrelenting schedules. This entertainment-soaked culture, wrestling with boredom, thrills, and materialism, has contributed to the sensory overload common to urban life. Our addiction to and with information technology with its online connections, news and internet communication, websites, blogs, and streaming (to name a few) exacerbates the preexisting flood of intruding must-haves and must-dos that demand our time, attention, affections, and devotion ...

  • William Lane Craig — 

    ... While I do not wish for anyone to be a non-theist, I must confess that Alex Vilenkin’s being an agnostic about God is dialectically advantageous for the proponent of the kalām cosmological argument, since it pulls the rug from beneath anyone who claims that belief that the universe began to exist is due to one’s theological commitments or that dreaded disorder of “confirmation bias.” Vilenkin has no theological axe to grind concerning this scientific question and so can be ruthlessly objective ...

  • The Good Book Blog — 

    Dr. Kevin Lawson (Professor of Educational Studies at Talbot School of Theology) recently co-edited and published Infants and Children in the Church: Five Views on Theology and Ministry in partnership with Dr. Adam Harwood (Associate Professor of Theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary). We wanted to learn more about this book, so we had Dr. Lawson respond to some questions ...

  • Edik Borysov — 

    Christian Megapolis is conducting a project, which considers the following two issues: (1) the nature of doctoral education and (2) actual national Ukrainian doctors and doctoral students as living, interesting personalities. To this end we invite you to enjoy this interview of Eduard Borysov by Rostislav Tkachenko ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    A couple of weeks ago I had the chance of visiting the beautiful land of Israel. My wife and I went with Israel Collective, an organization dedicated to peace-making in Israel. We saw remarkable sites, met unique people (Israelis, Palestinians, Druze), heard powerful lectures, and ate some of the best food I have ever had—period ...

  • David Horner — 

    ... Suffering is not only physical. It’s also emotional, psychological, relational and spiritual. Victims and their families have internal wounds and struggles; some find this pain equal to or even greater than that of their external wounds. Sufferers need comfort, love, a taste of goodness, a measure of peace. They need hope ...

  • Why Doesn’t the Bible Speak to Me?

    Weekly Q & A with Dr. William Lane Craig

    William Lane Craig — 

    ... Before I address your questions, Marc, let me say how much I admire you for your willingness to allow your son to follow, if he desires, religious convictions different than your own and not to forbid him. What you would be “depriving him of exactly,” should you forbid him to follow the path of Christian discipleship, is freedom of conscience and freedom of religious expression, which, I’m sure you’ll agree, are pretty fundamental rights ...

  • Sean McDowell — 

    How is there both unity and diversity in reality? Why is there both change and sameness over time? According to Frederick Copleston, in his massive ten-volume A History of Philosophy, these questions relate to the first philosophical issue people wrestled with, which is often called the problem of the one and the many. In the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., Greek philosophers wanted to know what accounted for both the unity and diversity within nature and so they began to offer various theories for ultimate reality ...

  • Must We Prove God’s Superlative Attributes?

    Weekly Q & A with Dr. William Lane Craig

    William Lane Craig — 

    ... I take your question, Joe, because it embodies what seems to be a common confusion. Success in natural theology (i.e., arguments for God’s existence) is not determined by whether one’s argument proves all of the attributes of God (much less His omni- attributes!). The argument needs to raise the plausibility or probability that God exists to count as successful ...

  • Thaddeus Williams — 

    The 16th century church was in dire need of a Reformation. What about today, a half millennium later? Is the 21st century church due for another Reformation, a Re-Reformation? Professor Williams shares his thoughts ...

  • Octavio Esqueda — 

    The phrase or hashtag #MeToo became viral in social media in recent days. “Me Too” is not a new phrase; the African-American social activist Tarana Burke started using it ten years ago, but it became a media trending topic recently. This phrase represents a public acknowledgement that a person (although women are sadly the vast majority) has been sexually harassed or assaulted. It has been heartbreaking to read the countless testimonies of people who had the courage to share their abuse stories—many of them for the first time—with openness and frankness ...