May I express two opinions: ONE: I am not a hard “cessationist”, that is, there is not a single Bible verse that says the gift of prophecy ended with the apostles. Not Hebrews 2:4. Not 1 Corinthians 13:8-12. Certainly not Revelation 22:18-19. If cessationism is not explicitly taught in Scripture, I have no right to... Continue Reading →
God’s Kingdom: right in front of your nose! Luke 17:21
A while ago, someone commented on this passage from Luke 17:20-21 – [1] Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within [ἐντός/entos] you.” (I quote the NKJV here, since that resembles the Spanish... Continue Reading →
Paul had the Bible memorized!
It is common knowledge that the apostle knew by heart the entire text of the Hebrew Scriptures. He also was able to cite another version at will: the Greek version of the Bible known as the Septuagint. This is the version he almost always quote in his letters to Greek-speaking Christians. Thus: when he quoted... Continue Reading →
My Favorite 5 New Testament Archaeology Discoveries in Recent Years!
Usually it’s the Old Testament that garners all the publicity for archaeological finds, and for good reasons: the Israelites inhabited the land for centuries and left behind all kinds of artifacts. Jesus and the apostles did not erect buildings or put up inscriptions or make special clay pots. Nevertheless, New Testament archaeology has yielded some... Continue Reading →
Christians and “Coincidences” or Is There a Hex in the Patternicity?
This article has many images and footnotes; I encourage the reader to download it as a pdf here: Shogren_Christians and Coincidences It happened just the other day: I had been thinking about James Bond, and later when I pulled out a form of identification for the bank teller, I noticed that my ID number began with 007!... Continue Reading →
A Year of Aramaic and Syriac!
October 10, 2016 is the day! We will be launching Peshar (Aramaic for "interpretation"), our new Facebook group for learning and reading Aramaic and Syriac. If you can already read biblical Hebrew and would like to expand your skills, let me know if you want to join! Visit HERE. Within a few weeks we will be... Continue Reading →
Will it Kill your Pastor if he Visits You? A Response to Thom S. Rainer
Thom S. Rainer is the president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources and has a very popular blog on church life. Having read with approval a number of his other articles, I was surprised to find one that I roundly disagreed with. It is titled “FIFTEEN REASONS WHY YOUR PASTOR SHOULD NOT VISIT MUCH” And he... Continue Reading →
Thoughts on Hebrew and Greek from a Scholar: Will Varner
Thanks to Dr. Will Varner for this article, to which I here post a link. It's a topic that interests me, but once in a while I come across an article and have to conclude, "This person expresses it so much better than I could, so I'll just link to their article!" DO WE NEED TO... Continue Reading →
Yeshua? Iesous? Jesus? Some other form? Who’s right?
The reader may download the entire article as a pdf file, especially given the presence of long technical footnotes׃ Shogren_Yeshua Iesous Jesus Some other form Who’s right. The results from the TLG search, mentioned in the article, may be downloaded here: Ιησους in TLG first 1000 references The headlines are usually IN BOLD PRINT!! With lots of... Continue Reading →
Read the Hebrew Torah in 2015-2016!
Some friends and I are going to read through the books of Moses over the next year. We will be follow the liturgical cycle of the synagogue for the Jewish year 5776, with a set portion or parashah every week. This breaks down to a chapter-plus per day. I will be using Logos 6 with Stuttgartensia... Continue Reading →