Gary Shogren's Blog
I was fresh out of university when the editors of the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary asked me to write the article on election. My starting point is exegesis of texts, not systematic theology. You can read the original article in volume 2:441–444; the following is slightly paraphrased. The nature of this article is a panoramic... Continue Reading →
Beware of those who are trying to resurrect David Wilkerson's The Vision, where in 1973 he supposedly predicted the plague that we now call Coronavirus. He did not, not by a long shot. What he ACTUALLY said was quite different. Most of his "vision" was utterly generic and rambling and could be true for any... Continue Reading →
I will share my conclusion up front: of course we do! And if we are able to settle that, the main issue now becomes one of logistics, not of theology. First some background. Churches are offering online worship services: Bible studies; small groups. A Mennonite church in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is offering drive-through prayer: the... Continue Reading →
Coronavirus! Here is, I hope, the last thing I'll say on this matter. People are uncovering, as they always do with any and every scary event, COVID-19 buried deeply in some mystical Hebrew code. For example, one guy finds COVID and the accidental death of KOBE - as in the late basketball player - predicted... Continue Reading →
I am committed to using the very best edition of the Greek New Testament. At this moment, I accept as best the Nestle-Aland 28th edition (NA-28; I do not say this to put down the SBL or the Tyndale House New Testaments, but that is an issue for another day). Thus I am dumbfounded by... Continue Reading →
I love to write, and since I just yesterday finished drafting out a new book - and having a great time doing so! - a comment by C. S. Lewis reminded me that I should not claim to be doing some great act of self-surrender whenever I crank up the laptop. To paraphrase Plutarch from... Continue Reading →
Every year I join the Goodreads Reading Challenge (take a look at the wonderful site, http://www.goodreads.com, where you can log your reading). This year, as in the past few years, I have set the goal of reading 104 books, an average of two per week. Some are shorter novellas or tractates, some are long novels... Continue Reading →
I have written several papers on how the church of the 2nd and 3rd centuries reported that they experienced the gift of prophecy. For example, only in the early 3rd century did Origen observe that "since [the time of Christ and the apostles] these signs have diminished, although there are still traces of His presence... Continue Reading →
This material adapted from 1-2 Thessalonians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, from pages 161-66. The book is available from Amazon and as a discount from Amazon, and also from Logos, in Korean and also in Spanish. 1 Thess 4:4 is the most complex verse in the Thessalonian correspondence because of the difficulty of... Continue Reading →
Never before in human history have so many people had such easy access to the Bible - or people of any faith to their sacred books, for that matter - than we have to the Scriptures. Reading through the entire Bible in a year is a terrific goal for any year. And my very favorite... Continue Reading →
Open Our Eyes, Lord! 