Bock's Blog

We now turn to the third section of the Newsweek article that makes various claims about contradictions in the New Testament. 

On Three Kings and Other Differences

First of all, it has been a while. My travel and end of semester responsibilities kept me fairly busy the last few months, but I am back. Let me begin by wishing everyone a Happy New Year and Blessed 2015. 

I was honored to see The Good Lie last night at a screening preview. It is rare I recommend a movie without qualification. This is well worth seeing. It is about the Lost Boys of the Sudan. These boys (and girls) were orphaned in war in Africa, lived in refugee camps and were from the same tribe. The movie is told so well and powerfully. It deals with the ravages of war, the resultant orphanage, moving to a new country with nothing, and shows the hurdles of such an experience, so it gives insight into the process of immigrating to a new land.

This link contains my interview with Arthur Urquhart of Radio Rhema in Auckland, New Zealand. I have been doing a series of meetings on cultural engagement and theology here. That is what the interview focused on. It is divided into 4 parts on the web page.

Here is the link:

http://www.rhema.co.nz/shows-djs/mornings/item/176-dr-darrell-bock-in-the-studio

Fred Zaspel runs a web site called Books at a Glance. He just completed an interview with me about my book, Jesus according to Scripture. It is the first of several he plans to do about my books. This is a book I loved writing. It covers all of the gospels and how Scripture presents Jesus in quadaphonic sound.

Here is the link to that interview:

I bought Common Grace thinking it would be a discussion of what those outside of faith share as humans. In fact it was something else. It was a close look at two covenants prominent in Reformed Theology: the Adamic and Noahic covenants. The focus is on God's program and what he asks of us as humans before Him. It is full of reflection about these two parts of Genesis and discussion of theological concepts such as the image of God, original righteousness, paradise, God's promise not to destroy the world again by flood, and numerous other ideas.

How can the church be a positive presence in the culture? How did it lose its place? How can it come again to be a place where its influence can be positively felt? That is the goal of Greg Forster’s new book, Joy for the World.

Forster is Program Director at the Kern Family Foundation and a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational choice. He is a political scientist with a degree from Yale University and is one of those thoughtful believers wrestling with how the church should function in a diverse culture.

Well, we finally heard the scientific report on the Jesus Wife manuscript from a year and a half ago. Yes, right before Easter, as always. The sense of PR timing is so consistent.

This is a sad blog to write. It is about a profound failure in a ministry whose track record has been good, even exemplary. World Vision has served the needs of the poor in exceptional ways for decades. I recall with deep fondness visiting numerous times their school site located on the edge of the garbage dump in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I took students in to show how poverty can be met with ministry. Their outreach to children living in the dump to give them a core education using the help of volunteers and seminary students showed love and compassion of the deepest kind.