Last Week at Tov Unleashed

I opened the week with a post about the unmasking of evangelicalism, and I stand by it: what it was is not what it is, and what it is is not what it ought to be. Grasping where it will be eludes me, and it is not a pleasant task to bring this all to our attention.

Evangelicalism has lost credibility. It can only blame itself. We are watching its unmasking.

Evangelicalism is a disorganized, ecumenical alliance of Christians with traditional beliefs, the necessity of a personal experience with God in Christ (new birth), and as a movement it (previously) had a strong commitment to evangelism.

Mike Bird’s new book about the Bible, which begins a series for us on this blog, opened up with the claim that the Bible did not drop out of the sky:

It did not drop from the sky. We may think it is divine in origin but God surrendered the scriptures to the hands of God’s people and they have treated it well but with a variety of purposes – not all of them the desire to preserve the text without alteration.

Jesus twice blessed the poor, but one time we get “in spirit” added to “poor.” Which is it? We looked at this Wednesday:

The first says poor in spirit and the second says just poor. Which is it? Is Jesus blessing those who are poor or is blessing the humble?

It makes a difference. Just ask the social activists today: they think it’s about poverty. Just ask many alive today who are shaped by Patristic writings or Reformation theology: it’s about humility before God.

Which is it? Poor or not?
Can it be both? If so, how?

We finished a wonderful series on the new biography about Eugene Peterson by noticing some late in life stories about him.

And we looked Friday about the songs in Revelation and hinted at a study of mine on the songs’ relationship to Spirituals.