Skip to main content

Posts by Mark Saucy



  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    The following is the final post in a series of eight posts exploring the beauty of gender from a biblical perspective. Read the first post, The...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    The following is the seventh post in a series of eight posts exploring the beauty of gender from a biblical perspective. Read the first post, The...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    The following is the second post in a series of eight posts exploring the beauty of gender from a biblical perspective. Read the first post,...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    The following is the second post in a series of eight posts exploring the beauty of gender from a biblical perspective. Read the first post, "The...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    The following is the fourth post in a series of eight posts exploring the beauty of gender from a biblical perspective. Read the first post, ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    The following is the third post in a series exploring the beauty of gender from a biblical perspective. Read the first post, Gender Matters: Part...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    The following is the second post in a series of eight posts exploring the beauty of gender from a biblical perspective. Read the first post, ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    The following is the first post in a series of eight posts exploring the beauty of gender from a biblical perspective. Yes, take the title here...

  • Think Biblically

    Sean McDowell, Scott Rae, Mark Saucy — 

    Eschatology, or the doctrine of the end times, often is portrayed largely speculation, based on difficult to interpret biblical texts and subject...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    Like never before, events of recent weeks give weight to the claim that tribalism in American society has never been greater than it is today....

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    Last year, Biola’s Board of Trustees released a new document, The Statement of Biblical Principles, to help articulate the university’s Christian...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    No, not that S-word—though the mainstreaming of 4-letter words into “civil discourse” is something worthy of notice, and not as praiseworthy! No, I...

  • Talbot Magazine

    Rejoicing in the Grace of God

    Talbot-Kyiv Extension Reaches the Slavic World

    Mark Saucy — 

    The Talbot-Kyiv Extension celebrates more than a decade of ministry in Ukraine, providing theological training to leaders and scholars in the church of Eurasia.

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    I received a good question from my nephew the other day—one that I think comes around to all of us at one time or another. It’s about assurance,...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    Imagine my double-take when I was confronted with this assessment of our comparative religions by an Orthodox believer several years ago back in Ukraine: “Mark, you Protestants follow a religion of professors, whereas we Orthodox … the religion of monks" ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    In the first part of this short series, we looked at how both ancient and modern disciples “take offense” at Jesus against his warning in Luke 7:23 —“Blessed is the one who doesn’t take offense in Me.” Easy scholarly and popular conclusions that Israel hoped for the wrong kind of kingdom made Jesus offensive and Israel culpable at the same time. Our second part here also finds Jesus’ view of the kingdom offensive to ancients and moderns, but for a different reason ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    Reading the other day in Luke’s Gospel I ran across some arresting words aimed indirectly at John the Baptist. In Luke 7:23, right after the account of John sending a delegation of disciples to inquire whether Jesus is the “Expected One,” Jesus cites his deeds and words to say in effect, “yes, indeed I am.” But then Jesus closes the episode with another “beatitude” seemingly made in John’s direction: “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me" ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    The recent welcome of Evangelical radio apologist, “The Bible Answer Man” —Hank Hanegraaff, into the Greek Orthodox Church has understandably raised more than eyebrows. Questions about the differences between Protestants and Orthodox have been coming my way in the aftermath, so I want to offer to Good Book Blog readers an essay I wrote for Talbot’s Sundoulos magazine back in 2008. In it you’ll find some general characteristics of the Orthodox denomination as well as key points of difference with Protestants—some of which converts such as Hank Hanegraaff would typically need to renounce as they formally enter Orthodoxy ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    ... The topic is work. Something important for all of us, and it’s one that has interested me in particular teaching already five years now a theology of work course for Biola’s Crowell School of Business MBA program. Work is also a topic that naturally engages the desire for kingdom impact in the culture, because, as Karl Barth says, “human culture is produced in work. So the Faith and Work movement is right on target for engaging a ready audience in a worthy endeavor. This of course isn’t the only good of theology of work ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    One of the benefits of being part of a Christian university is the opportunity for collaboration with colleagues across the disciplines. For theologians this is gold. Questions for integration of faith in science, history, politics, or psychology? I’ve got specialists across campus, all with the same mission, who have been thinking about such things for a long time. One recent opportunity in this direction was participating a colloquium with the faculty of Biola’s Crowell School of Business. Among many topics opened that day, one in particular has haunted me these days in the interim. It was a question that revolved around a start-up competition the Business School sponsors. Students are encouraged to submit business plans for the hope of some start up seed money to launch. But what should be the criteria for judging “better” proposals? Beyond certain received best practices for the business side, does God prefer some business plans to others? Following is my original Yes and No answer to the question; what comes after is now another rather late Yes for the conversation. God does prefer some businesses to others ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    What images do the word “work” bring to mind? If students and others I’ve had the chance to ask are any measure, the first thoughts aren’t all that positive. For myself I can recall flip comments I have made (half-) jokingly about hating when my work gets in the way of my hobby (cycling, mountain biking—the sport of kings!). From what I get from others, I’m fairly typical ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    This week’s conference, “Israel and the Church: A Troubled Past and Glorious Future,” hosted by Biola and Chosen People Ministries, provided yet another opportunity for me to think “big picture.” As most of us, I suppose, the cares of daily tasks—emails, news cycles, family, work-ministry, church-ministry—I can get so buried in the daily that I lose the plan! By plan I mean the narrative that God has written for the world. A narrative that first rescues a fallen creation and then restores it to the flourishing fullness God made it for ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    While I’m not usually too much into “merchandising in the Temple,” I must here. That’s because the book at issue in this modest review is a grabber. Not only does it concern a topic most pressing in our ever secularizing world—and therefore one Evangelicals must get good at talking about—it’s a topic that touches every one of us in everything we do ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    You know that part of your Bible where the gold leaf on the pages still looks pretty fresh? Some of the pages might still even be stuck together. Or, more au courant, the portion you rarely scroll to on your phone or iPad … That’s right, for most of us it’s that part of the Bible starting right after Psalms and going all the way to Matthew. A lot of prophets big and little, and a good bit of Israel’s Wisdom tradition—but it just doesn’t get a lot of air-time in most evangelical churches or personal Bible-reading. Now, I’m the first to admit that last claim stems from my own highly subjective internal polling data, and I’m glad to be proven wrong; but I don’t think I am, because I know a good bit of it’s true in my own life ...

  • The Good Book Blog

    Mark Saucy — 

    There are many memories I will treasure of my father, Robert Saucy, but I will write about only one now that has most profoundly impacted me—I believe, for all eternity. It was Dad’s passion for God’s Word.