Marginal Christianity

Mark 9:38-50   38  John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone throwing demons out in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us.” 39  Jesus replied, “ Don’t stop him. No one who does powerful acts in my name can quickly turn around and curse me. 40  Whoever isn’t against us is for us. 41  I assure you that whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will certainly be rewarded. 42  “As for whoever causes these little ones who believe in me to trip and fall into sin, it would be better for them to have a huge stone hung around their necks and to be thrown into the lake. 43  If your hand causes you to fall into sin, chop it off. It’s better for you to enter into life crippled than to go away with two hands into the fire of hell, which can’t be put out ] 45  If your foot causes you to fall into sin, chop it off. It’s better for you to enter life lame than to be thrown into hell wi...

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2012/09/head-coverings-in-worship-why-female.html Posted on 9.27.2012 One of the joys of being friends with bible scholars is the stuff they share with you to explore. Recently, my colleague Trevor Thompson, who is a New Testament scholar here at ACU, shared with me some of the work of another NT scholar, Troy Martin, who is a friend of Trevor's. One of Martin's areas of expertise is using ancient medical texts to illuminate NT passages, particularly passages that seem confusing to us. In various studies Martin makes the observation that some of these confusions stem from the fact that we don't share the same medical understandings of the NT writers and their audiences. When ancient medical terms or ideas are used we often miss the meaning. A good example of this comes from 1 Corinthians 11.2-16 . This passage has caused a lot of head scratching. In this text Paul makes an argument about women needing a head covering ...

James 5:13-20 13  If any of you are suffering, they should pray. If any of you are happy, they should sing. 14  If any of you are sick, they should call for the elders of the church, and the elders should pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15  Prayer that comes from faith will heal the sick, for the Lord will restore them to health. And if they have sinned, they will be forgiven. 16  For this reason, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous person is powerful in what it can achieve. 17  Elijah was a person just like us. When he earnestly prayed that it wouldn’t rain, no rain fell for three and a half years. 18  He prayed again, God sent rain, and the earth produced its fruit. 19  My brothers and sisters, if any of you wander from the truth and someone turns back the wanderer, 20  recognize that whoever brings a sinner back from the wrong p...

Thomas Magstadt NationofChange / Op-Ed Published: Tuesday 25 September 2012 Remember the sweet little children’s song, “Jesus loves me! This I know…”? Well, kiddies, guess what? Republicans are different. They don’t love you. If Democrats were to pull a Watergate caper and steal the Republican campaign playbook, they might accuse Republicans of committing the ultimate blasphemy to Christians.  They might say that in seeking to denigrate and tear down everything government tries to do to help the poor, the sick, and the needy, Republicans are secretly waging war against the teachings of Jesus Christ.  They might conjure up a catchy slog...

Psalm 124 124   If the Lord hadn’t been for us—      let Israel now repeat!— 2       if the Lord hadn’t been for us,          when those people attacked us 3  then they would have swallowed us up whole          with their rage burning against us! 4  Then the waters would have drowned us;      the torrent would have come over our necks; 5       then the raging waters would have come over our necks! 6  Bless the Lord      because he didn’t hand us over      like food for our enemies’ teeth! 7  We escaped like a bird from the hunters’ trap;      the trap was broken so we escaped! 8  Our help is in the name of the Lord ,      the maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 124 from The Message : ...