Gary Shogren's Blog
I have always been a big reader, but never anything close to my list for 2016. That’s when I began to use the wonderful online group, Goodreads.com, to log the books that I have read, am reading, and want to read. I am up over 1900 books that I have logged as "read" in my lifetime, so... Continue Reading →
This is a prayer of the great church father Augustine, which he was accustomed to use after his sermons and lectures. I have updated the version found in NPNF 1,8, p. 683. We now turn to the Lord God, the Father Almighty, and with pure hearts we offer to him, so far as we can... Continue Reading →
With all due respect to the original, this is my thorough paraphrase, condensation, and updating of George Whitfield’s, “Worldly Business No Plea for the Neglect of Religion,” Sermon 20 of his Collected Sermons Matthew 8:22 – “Let the dead bury their dead.” When Paul preached at Athens, he observed that they were “very religious.” But... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
To download the entire article, click here Shogren_Strongs Concordance For Bible students who don’t use Hebrew and Greek, the Strong Concordance is a popular tool, available online. [1] But it has a serious limitation – namely: the “dictionary” in the back of Strong’s is not really a dictionary at all, and should not be used... Continue Reading →
This was a commencement address that I gave in 1998 at Biblical Theological Seminary. You can download the text here. Shogren_Christianity without Christ In the last century, during the heyday of Liberal Christianity, a fringe group of thinkers raised the question, “Does a person really have to believe in Christ in order to be a good... Continue Reading →
This is a topic which interests me very much, not just in theory, but because of my involvement of training both female and male soldiers for the kingdom of God. I hope to publish some thoughts of my own at some point, but for now I yield to the master, and his brief article from 1982.... Continue Reading →
There are now hundreds of versions of the Bible in English, and more come out every year. And there is great benefit from comparing version with version. Still, if I were king, I would impose a moratorium on new Bible versions for at least a decade. If I were king. But, let’s see what hand life... Continue Reading →
(Thanks to Paul D. Adams of for bringing this to my attention! Check out Paul’s blog at http: http://inchristus.com/. I also recommend the series that starts with my essay: “But the Greek REALLY says…”: Why Hebrew and Greek are not needed in the pulpit, Part 1) F. F. Bruce was the prime mover of the renaissance of... Continue Reading →
Open Our Eyes, Lord! 