Ben Witherington – God’s Friday

Today, Western Christianity commemorates Good Friday, the day when our Saviour was crucified. There are not many people more qualified to talk about the excruciating pain of loosing one’s child as theologian Ben Witherington. Here is the Good Friday meditation ha has shared on his blog on Patheos.

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On Good Friday the skies wept,
They just opened up and torrential rains came down.
Flooding the creeks, the brooks, the streams.
The rivulets became rivers, the rivers became swollen,
The lands disappeared, surrendered their hold to the rivers.
The ground under our feet, which once we took as forever firm and reliable and a place to stand, washed away.

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Larry Hurtado & Ben Witherington Discuss the Movie ‘Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe’

Scholars Larry Hurtado & Ben Witherington join Robert Orlando on stage for post screening discussion after watching Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe in San Diego during SBL conference.

Ben Witherington – Who is the Beast of Revelation 13?

Who is the Beast of Revelation? In this Seven Minute Seminary video, Dr. Ben Witherington responds with important Bible background.

It’s important to keep in mind that the term “antichrist” actually only shows up in the epistles of John (1 John 2:18-22; 4:3; 2 John 1:7), where there are supposedly several antichrists already on the scene. Christians have conflated this term with one of the beasts in Revelation though, who has the famous number 666 (Rev. 13:18). Using gematria, an ancient numerical code system for concealing sensitive information, the biblical author was referring to “Nero Caesar, the Son of the Divine Augustus,” which in Latin has the numerical value of 666. In the 90s, some even thought that the emperor Domitian was Nero come back from the dead.

So Revelation teaches that the beast, or person who sets himself up against Christ and his church, is a Nero-like figure. Human history tends to repeat itself and may even culminate in a figure whose character resembles that of Nero.

 

Guide to Raisng Hand in Class

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(Source, Ben Witherington)

Ben Witherington on Bad Protestant Ecclesiology | internetmonk.com

Ben Witherington on Bad Protestant Ecclesiology | internetmonk.com.

Something worth considering by all those Protestants that struggle with the meaning of the Church.

The King Jesus Gospel – Ben Witherington asks, Scot McKnight responds

Scot McKnight’s latest book, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited, occasioned an interesting dialogue between the author and Biblical scholar Ben Witherington, that Scot published HERE and HERE on his blog. I paste them here below, in the interest of the Romanian reader.

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Q.  Let’s start with a question I get asked a lot which usually takes the form—- ‘What!  Another book by you?   What prompted you to write yet another book and why this book in particular?

Yes, I get asked that question at times, and as we enter into … what do we call this part of our careers, Ben?, because we don’t want to admit we are starting to be the veterans in the circle … the writing habit has become part of how we live. But, each book has its own genesis and this began for me years back when I began to ask myself what the “gospel” would look like if I began at the beginning of the Bible and not with Paul’s letter to the Romans. I developed that into Embracing Grace but was not entirely satisfied, and a good reading of the last two chps it may have been clear that I was probing some themes for which I did not have final answers but was exploring some things. Then I wrote A Community called Atonement to explore how atonement and gospel work together.

Istoria lui Tommy si un slujitor nevrednic al lui Dumnezeu

Am primit ieri prin email, de la o prietenă, povestea convertirii unui student ateu în Chicago şi am fost impresionat de ea, aşa încât am decis să explorez puţin realitatea şi legitimitatea afişării ei pe blogul meu.

Ceea ce m-a facut puţin suspicios a fost fraza cu care se încheie mesajul. Ea sună cam aşa:

„If this story means anything to you, please pass it on to a friend or two. It is a true story and is not enhanced for publicity purposes.”