Read This

Read This: “Four Views of the Lord’s Supper”

By in Read This, Teaching & Study

When I’ve taught my course on “Christian History,” one of the many doctrines and practices we look at over almost 2,000 years of historic “mainstream” Christianity is the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper (also called at times the Eucharist or Holy Communion). Most of my students are surprised or even shocked when they learn that there are other “views” about what the Supper is about.

As I continue listening to back episodes of the Simply Put Podcast (which I have already praised on several occasions), I am reminded of many examples from Christianity’s history of such diversity in views. I am reproducing below the Simply Put Podcast episode on “Four Views of the Lord’s Supper” so you might understand these different views of the Supper better. I think Barry Cooper does an excellent job concisely describing the four major views. Would you rather listen to the podcast than read it? Then click here.

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Read This: “Final Judgment”

By in Read This, Resource, Teaching

A few weeks ago, our “Pick of the Week” was the “Simply Put” Podcast, hosted by Barry Cooper and produced by the Ligonier.org ministry.

If you have not yet taken the opportunity to start listening to these short 3 to 5 minute audio lessons, I’m going to reproduce the written form of the most recent episode below.

I’m doing this for two reasons: (1) Every lesson is very good, and this one especially! (2) My overarching theme with www.EffectiveBibleStudy.com is providing good resources I use and can recommend to others who also teach God’s Word. As for this second point, a good student of the Word learns how both to dig into the text for him or herself, but also how to find and use good materials from others which also study the Scriptures. So, here’s the written form of Barry Cooper’s “Final Judgment.”Continue Reading

Read This: “The Most Dangerous Thing Luther Did”

By in Church History, Read This

No secret about it. I love to read and study Christian (i.e., Church) History. Numerous articles on this website are evidence of that. The stacks of books in my library and numerous titles in my Kindle digital book account confirm it.

Recently I wrote several articles on some little-known aspects of Martin Luther’s life and work, including two on this translation of the Bible into the common German language. So I was thrilled to discover this article in the Christianity Today Magazine archives written in 2017 by Ben Witherington, entitled, “The Most Dangerous Thing Luther Did.”I highly recommend it.

Our image is of the original 1534 printing of Luther’s complete Bible in German. Provided by Wikimedia Commons.