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Justification and faith are words with quite a wide range of meaning. It looks like Paul uses both in ways that have a certain variation. Pistis can be translated both as faith and faithfulness, and I think both translations are needed The first major treatment of both is with Abraham, who...

There are two Reformed positions on the sabbath. I think the most common is that the Lord‘s Day (Sunday) is now the Sabbath. But there’s also a view that worship on a specific day was part of the ceremonial law, and doesn’t apply to us. Our worship is free. There is NT evidence for Christians...

Greek and English don't always make distinctions the same way. Louw and Nida say of the word "a very small child, even one still unborn—‘baby, infant, fetus." incidentally, at that point Elizabeth is in her sixth month. I would consider abortion unethical except for rare medical situations.

But before birth they aren't babies. Trying to treat them as such is going to cause all kinds of problems. Something like half of pregnancies don't produce a living baby. Sometimes it's a visible miscarriage. Sometimes it happens early enough that it's not visible. If we treat all of those as...

Note that the text says "by him", not "he exclusively created." As I understand it, all three persons of the Trinity are involved in all acts of God.

I believe there are two reasonable ways to understand it. The traditional understanding is that Jesus was trying to get the man to realize that his experience of Jesus actually implied that Jesus was God. Mainline (including a lot of recent Catholic) theology would say that Jesus and Paul...

Yes. It's not just feelings. The Church provides a community I wouldn't otherwise have. I believe the Church is the most concrete presence of the Kingdom of God. I am really concerned when I see descriptions of churches and people's experience with them in CF. (Posting volume here isn't high...

In a way you can explain because Christians are sinners, too. But it appears that Christianity expanded in Rome because people admired them. I think the best evangelism today is people bringing their friends. That doesn't work if Christians appear less moral and interested in their neighbors...

Yes

1 in 10000 sounds way more optimistic than the advertised effectiveness. And the original numbers were not for delta.

Here’s one discussion of an experiment to check Facebooks tracking of false information. Facebook approves ads declaring COVID-19 a 'hoax' and urging people to gather also this. Facebook is going to start telling you when you see false information about coronavirus. While they are trting to...

I've found it difficult to find information on exactly how this s working. I'll give you the basis for my guess: * Most of the conservative political posts on my Facebook page are sponsored postings, not things individuals have posted. Take a look at Facebook yourself. A fairly large chunk of...

I don't think anyone is proposing censoring individual's postings. Facebook makes its money by ads, posting that people pay to be put up on everyone's page, or the pages of targeted groups. The postings under discussion here seem to be ads. I think it's fine for Facebook to refuse to accept ads...

Jesus quotes OT prophets, but I'm not immediately coming up with quotes from narrative. He refers to Noah a few times, but without quoting the story.

Obviously not.

Yes, but a different kind. It's clearly a traditional legend. Jonah, however, looks to me a literary work intended from the beginning as satire (though the commentary I checked thinks the satire is mixed with irony). I would guess that the form it appears in the Bible is essentially the...

Pretty clearly Luke was interested in the Gentile mission. It’s pretty obvious why he would see Paul as a hero. There is, however, little evidence of Paul’s actual theology in Luke. So if you don‘t like Paul’s theology that isn’t necessarily a problem for Luke.

I use Harry Potter as an example in Sunday School. Jonah was a well known literary character.

The classic reference here is Job. God was not pleased with the apologizers. He answered in a fashion, but not with direct answers to the questions. Rather he had Job meet him.

This is a difficult question. Paul doesn’t normally directly contradict Jesus. You can also establish many correspondences between his teachings and Jesus’, even where terminology differs. But there are differences in overall approach and what I’d call their vision. As I see it, Jesus says his...