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  • The Good Book Blog

    Soldiers in the Gospels

    Gary Manning Jr — 

    When I teach or preach from the Gospels, I always bring in relevant aspects of the historical and cultural background. Including such details not only helps us in our interpretation of the scene, but also helps us retell the story well – an essential part of preaching from narrative passages. Several passages in the Gospels involve soldiers. Movies about Jesus, and most sermons about Jesus, portray all of these soldiers as Romans. We sometimes get the idea that there were centurions on every street corner. But is this the case? I have pulled together some of the information that we have about soldiers in Judea and Galilee in the first century, and included a few comments about each scene in the Gospels involving soldiers.

  • The Good Book Blog

    Ideas: Not Without Consequence

    Freddy Cardoza — 

    Ideas are not neutral and irrelevant. They are constructs of language that can have helpful or hurtful cooresponding effects. All ideas are not equally valid and are not necessarily even true... but, true or not, ideas can have powerful effects and great care should be taken in our handling of them.

  • The Good Book Blog

    Godly Wisdom for Christian Conversation

    Ashish Naidu — 

    A friend of mine has a coffee cup with the following words printed on the outside, “Presbyterian Coffee: Predestined to be brewed decently and in order.” I chuckled when I saw it for the first time several years ago. The humorous one-liner nicely captures a couple of representative ideas that are associated with a particular church denomination. An amusing tongue-in-cheek way to integrate the love of coffee, a distinctive theological perspective, and a related view of church polity, one might say! Funny sayings aside, the hallmark of church polity of things being done “decently and in order” actually derives from Paul’s remark in 1 Cor. 14:40, where he instructs believers to be orderly in their worship and to avoid discord and confusion. I suggest that this regulative principle of church polity can be of great service outside its walls, especially in conversational contexts that can be potentially explosive.

  • Biola News

    Making Sense of Egyptian Uprising

    Arabic professor shares insights on recent revolution

    Jenna Bartlo — 

    Victor Khalil, professor of Arabic at Biola University, shed some light in an interview with Biola’s student newspaper, The Chimes, on the...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Elder Leadership & Spirit-Led Decision Making

    David Talley — 

    In addition to my faculty responsibilities at Biola University, I am a member of a pastoral team at a local church (www.graceevfree.org). We do not have a senior pastor. Our understanding of this is captured in two ministry values, namely “Elder Leadership” and “Spirit-led Decision Making.” It is my hope that the following summary of these ministry values might challenge you in your understanding of how the body of Christ is to function.

  • Biola News

    Three Biola Women Make Athletic History

    Conicelli named basketball player of the year; Miller sets new pentathlon record; Smith sets swimming record

    Jenna Bartlo — 

    Three Biola University women athletes kicked off Women’s History Month during the first week of March by making some history of their own. Jessilyn...

  • The Good Book Blog

    The Power of a Pure Life

    Freddy Cardoza — 

    Purity begets personal power. This personal power comes from integrity. Integrity creates inner strength, which manifests itself in strong character. This 'character' increasingly produces unmitigated power in the life of the person possessing it-- and such a person is fueled by nothing other than pure conviction.

  • Biola News

    Tweet Hunt Adds Excitement to Founders Day

    Biola celebrates 103rd birthday with scavenger hunt and burial of time capsule

    Jenna Bartlo — 

    Racing across campus, Biola junior Ben Kopec skidded to a halt outside the Student Health Center. By finding vice president Chris Grace standing...

  • The Good Book Blog

    The Fear Factor

    Freddy Cardoza — 

    Edvard Munch's ultimate work was his expressionist series The Frieze of Life. In that series Munch sought to illustrate some of the most fundamental themes of the human experience: life, love, death, melancholy, and fear.

  • Biola News

    Alumni Young and Old Celebrated at Biola Friday, February 18, 2011

    Jenna Bartlo — 

    The annual Alumni Awards were presented in chapel February 18 to four distinguished Biolans (Dr. Larry Acosta, 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award;...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Reading John

    Gary Manning Jr — 

    As a resident of Hawaii most of my life, one of the conversations that I have often had with visitors was about what to see when they came to Hawaii. I would tell them to get out of Waikiki, to be sure to visit Hanauma Bay early in the morning, and to try our local plate lunch, among other things. Hawaii is a great place to visit anyway, but hopefully my tips made the trip more enjoyable. I do something similar when I talk to people about the Gospel of John. John is a beautiful book that will bless and delight; but I have some tips that I hope will add to the reader’s enjoyment. Here they are – six questions that make up my traveler’s guide to the Gospel of John.

  • The Good Book Blog

    Living Lake or Stagnant Pond?

    Joe Hellerman — 

    I recently spent an hour with a Talbot guy who is really ‘getting it.’ Not only is Peter a bright, disciplined student of the New Testament. He is also up-to-his-ears in local church ministry.

  • The Good Book Blog

    John Calvin (1509-64)

    Rob Price — 

    Hey, if you can summarize Luther in 1,000 words, Calvin should be no problem. Not that Calvin’s any less interesting than Luther, just less open. In tens of thousands of pages of his surviving writings, including several thousand personal letters, Calvin gives only the rarest hints of what’s going on inside. It’s pretty obvious, though, that so profound an exegetical and theological legacy could only have come from a heart aflame for God.

  • The Good Book Blog

    Grammatical Categories

    Joe Hellerman — 

    Third semester Greek is a challenging place to be for our seminary students. Many of these folks are doing well just to hang on to what they learned back in Greek 1-2. Learning intermediate grammar finds our students negotiating a sharp turn deep in the tunnel of language acquisition. The proverbial light at the end of this tunnel—where knowledge of Greek pays significant exegetical dividends—gets almost snuffed out for a season by Wallace’s thirty-some categories of the genitive case.

  • Biola News

    Biola Supporters Traveled Into the Woods on Saturday, February 12

    Jenna Bartlo — 

    Biola donors assembled Saturday, February 12, 2011 for the Conservatory’s presentation of “Into the Woods”, the Tony Award-winning musical by...

  • The Good Book Blog

    The Violence of Truth

    Freddy Cardoza — 

    A sage once said that "Truth-telling is an act of violence." Regarding violence, anyone who has ever been victimized and that has suffered the resultant trauma knows its resonant results. It is like the proverbial pebble which causes a disproportionate effect-- rows of ripples that circumnavigate far from the point of impact, long after the rock has settled in the silt below.

  • The Good Book Blog

    Theotechnos: Some Reflections on the Intersection of Social Media and Theology

    Jeffrey Volkmer — 

    Along with speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, if one were to peruse the communication literature of most American, Evangelical churches, it would seem that Paul had somehow left off Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, and blogs of every sort. The ubiquity of “social media” in all its iterations has found quite the tender audience in Evangelicalism with seemingly no parachurch ministry, church (along with each respective ministry therein), pastor, youth minister, or seminary able forge ahead without intermittingly spreading communicative buckshot across the world wide web at a 140 character pace.

  • The Good Book Blog

    The Dangerless Fear

    Freddy Cardoza — 

    Fear can be rational or irrational. That said, there's a 'sense' in which it doesn't always matter whether one's fear is rational or not. That's because even if a particular fear happens to be irrational, that doesn't necessarily make it any less troubling. In fact, irrationality doesn't "negate" fear in the least-- and, in some cases, it can even breed terror.

  • The Good Book Blog

    Don’t Gimme No Theology!

    Joe Hellerman — 

    Don’t gimme no theology. Just gimme the Bible! Ever heard someone say that? Well, at times theology comes in handy. That might sound like a no-brainer coming from a pastor/seminary professor, but as a historian I much prefer interpreting a biblical passage in its historical and literary context (my task as a New Testament scholar) to systematizing various portions of Scripture around a single theological truth (the task of a theologian).

  • The Good Book Blog

    Martin Luther (1483-1546)

    Rob Price — 

    How do you introduce the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther in under 1,000 words—plus a picture or two? His life, his works, his doctrines, his impact? One standard biography (Brecht) runs 1,300 pages. I might omit a few things, but here goes.

  • The Good Book Blog

    Teaching Deeper, Part I

    Kevin Lawson — 

    Over the next several months, I will be addressing the problem of the shallow impact of many teaching ministries in our churches and ways that we might “Teach Deeper” for greater openness to God’s transforming work. In this first blog I pose some questions about why some of our teaching ministries seem to bear limited fruit and how we might better approach our teaching ministries.

  • Biola News

    Alumni at BIOLA vs APU Game

    Jenna Bartlo — 

    With spirits higher than the scoreboard indicated, the annual Biola-APU men’s and women’s basketball showdown was full of energy, enthusiasm and...

  • Biola Magazine

    In Print: Winter 2011

    Biola Magazine Staff — 

    The Virtues of Capitalism: A Moral Case for Free Markets, Scott Rae (chair and professor of philosophy of religion and ethics) and Austin Hill...

  • Biola Magazine

    Where Are They Now?: Winter 2011

    Biola Magazine Staff — 

    Church-Planting in Thailand Leslie Nesbitt (M.A. ’02) and Debbie (Yarrall, ’96) Nesbitt have been missionaries with Grace Brethren...

  • Biola Magazine

    Alumni Files: Winter 2011

    How Can We Make Biola More Affordable?

    Rick Bee — 

    The Biola University Alumni Board — a team of great volunteers who represent you — met recently to offer their wisdom and counsel on an important...