The Mileses

Paul and Olena Miles with Grace Abroad Ministries

evangelism

Biblical Theology and the Free Grace Crisis

Biblical Theology and Other Theological Methods

Theological methods can be divided into biblical, systematic, historical, and dogmatic theology. As a method, biblical theology studies the Bible as literature, focusing on a particular section of the Bible, whether it be a specific biblical author, period, genre, or such. Systematic theology divides doctrines into categories and considers all that the Bible says about these categories, historical theology studies the development of doctrine through the ages, and dogmatic theology studies schools of thought in theology. The logical procession would begin with biblical theology—the study of the Bible itself—before moving on to systematic and, finally, historical and dogmatic. An error in biblical theology can result in a faulty understanding of the proof texts for systematic theology, which will affect a tradition and is often copied through history.[Read More]

From Lower to Upper Apologetics: An Epistemology of Responsibility

Introduction

A common argument for the Christian worldview is what I am calling here lower apologetics as opposed to upper apologetics. The lower apologetical approach demonstrates a minimalist Christian worldview, while the upper apologetical approach demonstrates Christianity from a position of robust conservativism. There are strengths to arguments that are common to the lower method that may be integrated into upper apologetical arguments, but the apologist would be served well to work from an upper apologetics position.
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Dispensationalism: What It Is And Why It Matters

Dispensationalism is the school of thought that results from a plain grammatical-historical reading of Scriptures. Ryrie’s threefold sine qua non of dispensationalism includes grammatical-historical hermeneutics, doxological centrality of Scripture, and the distinction between Israel and the church,[1] but these latter two points are merely the result of the first. The doctrine that dispensationalism is most famous for is the pre-tribulational rapture, but this too is just the result of the consistent literal reading of Scripture. Even critics of dispensationalism recognize that grammatical-historicism results in dispensationalist conclusions. Since the legitimacy of dispensationalism stands or falls on the legitimacy of grammatical-historical hermeneutics, a discussion of dispensationalism’s strengths should focus on its hermeneutics.[Read More]

Retranslating James 2:14–26

People make James 2:14–26 harder than it should be. I think that the main problem is that man naturally wants to earn his own righteousness, so there is a tendency for men to misread biblical texts to make their salvation dependent on themselves.

There are some particularities to the English language that have become difficult in James, so I am offering a retranslation with a few oddities that I think are justified. This translation is part of a soteriology class that I am taking and I will include a commentary in a paper for that class (in other words, I want my professor to poke holes in the commentary it before I share it publicly).[Read More]

The False Gospel of Woke Evangelicalism

If you are a Christian, then you are almost certainly concerned about the underprivileged. Nobody wants any minority group to suffer, but Christians want much more for minorities than the secular world could possibly hope for. Since everyone is born spiritually dead and on a path to hell, Christians want people to receive eternal life. Unfortunately, the world has an ideology of wokism that is in conflict with the Gospel. What is worse, some evangelicals have fallen for wokism. Woke evangelicals keep people on the path to hell in two ways: first by distracting the church from evangelism thereby preventing the unbeliever from hearing, understanding, and believing the Gospel and second by distorting the gospel itself. This second problem, the woke perversion of the Gospel, is the topic of this post.[Read More]