It is common to find certain posts on social media that have gone viral. They are usually something provocative that challenges (at least in my circles) the standard Evangelical Christian sense of things, and almost always have some ensnaring title that promises titillation. I’ve been sitting on this...
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March 24, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Ethics, Society
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I’ve been reading of late, a lot of viral posts on social media in which a person accuses pastors and churches, teachers and schools, politicians, police, government agencies and the like of wrongdoing because they show “insensitivity” to “X” by defending some right, holding to some standard, enforcing some...
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March 22, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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Two realities confront us a Christians. The first is that, as loving members of our own communities, it is unthinkable that we do not do all that is in our power to secure the safety and prosperity general of that community. We are to pray for and participate...
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March 22, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Ethics, Society, Theology
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We’ve been considering the claim that Matthew’s appeal to YHWH’s historical deliverance of Israel from Egypt in Hosea 11:1 is proof positive that the NT writers cared little to nothing for the original context of the passages they quoted. They had, it is claimed, a Jesus hermeneutical lens...
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March 20, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Language Issues, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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Consequences, pain, suffering and loss are unwelcomed gifts from a loving creator to wayward creatures. Only discomfiture of one kind or another drives change. Only a sense of dissatisfaction with the world causes one to look up from his or her preoccupation with it, to consider what lies...
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March 17, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Theology, Worship
I’ve had some interesting discussions this week about various churches’ perception of “Spirituality, Love & Humility,” My ministry is non-denominational and I travel around a bit so I encounter all kinds of interesting perceptions of these matters. In the movie Joyful Noise the choir director struggles with her...
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March 17, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society, Theology
In this series we are laying the ground work for analyzing the common suggestion that Matthew 2:15 proves that the New Testament writers don’t care about the original context of the Old Testament texts that they interpret …and, thus, neither should we. I insist that they did care...
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March 15, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Studies, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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In part 1 of this series I introduced the common accusation that Matthew 2:15 proves that the New Testament writers don’t care about context. Matthew takes a text that was clearly intended to make an historical statement about God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt and declares it to...
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March 13, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Studies, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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What you are about to read is real. These are not actors, but are the actual opinions of the people who are expressing them. No, seriously, I couldn’t make these things up. Well, I’m pretty creative, so I could… but you’d accuse me a writing psychologically dishonest fiction....
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March 10, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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Matthew 2:15 is one of those passages that bothered me a lot when I was a young Bible college student. After reading the original passage from which this “fulfillment” was quoted, I asked a prof in class one day, little realizing the historical significance of my wording, “How...
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March 8, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT
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I had an over the top experience in a congregation yesterday after preaching a message on a Biblical Theology of Holiness, called “Whole Life Holiness.” I have grown accustomed to the fact that an exorbitant number of Millennials have a rather narcissistic view of their own qualifications to...
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March 6, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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We have invited Melodie Sargent, a student at Northpoint Bible college, back again to deliver another blog post. This time her attention is turned the importance of rhetorical structure in the first prophetic sermon of Amos. Enjoy. Amos 1:3–2:16 Background During the righteous reign of King Uzziah (Amos...
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March 3, 2017 Andrew Sargent
HAGALAH, Old Testament Studies
Myopic visions of reality are a basic human trait. The mind is incapable of tracking enough information for a person to see everything, to know everything, to anticipate the effects of everything on other things. Thus, people tend to fixate on a few things and track those, to...
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March 1, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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When I was a child, I spent a lot of time irritating my teachers. I had the tendency to say, “What does that mean?” and “What am I supposed to do with that?” or “Why does this matter?” I was more practical back then than I am now...
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February 27, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Theology, Society
This is a heavily edited New Years Day message that I delivered at Darlington Congregational Church in Pawtucket Rhode Island a few years ago. Being heavily edited, it is not only short, but also gets to the point without a lot of hoopla. I consider the importance that...
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February 24, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Theology, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
It is a piteous thing to look upon the suffering of others no matter what the cause of that suffering. A child born with disabilities whose own struggle to survive drains every last bit of nerve and resource that his or her loving family possesses. An undereducated, unskilled...
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February 22, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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Today we have a guest blogger. Melodie Sargent is a student at Northpoint Bible College and has written a short reflection paper on issues related to the reliability of Scripture. Rather than work the typical saws that we Evangelicals work in terms of fulfilled prophecy and the like,...
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February 17, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Theology
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Why does the media lean so far left? You might say, “It doesn’t lean left! It’s not biased!” In which case I imagine that you are left leaning and quite content with a sweeping bias that snuggles so nicely into your own perception of the world… and you...
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February 15, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Uncategorized
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When I first made my attempt at radio, I tried my hand at some discussions with just me and my recorder at home. I use audacity and love it. This is a funky version of me delivering a lecture without the intellectual stimulation of a bemused or confused...
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February 13, 2017 Andrew Sargent
HAGALAH
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There is something wrong with the world. Everyone, save a few Pollyanna hold outs, knows this. Thus, one of the most ideologically revealing questions that a person can answer is, “What is wrong with the world?” The second is like unto it, “Can it be fixed?”[1] These form...
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February 10, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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