Experimental Theology

"sing praise"
Here's something you probably didn't know, or didn't want to know, about me. I'm a bit of a Swiftie.
Taylor Swift wasn't on my radar screen during her early career. But I do try to pay attention to what my students are listening to. So in 2014, our student office worker was listening to Swift's recently released album 1989. If you know Taylor Swift...

In the last post I described how the extreme imagery of Revelation is rhetorical in nature. Still, people have concerns. As Brian K. Blount's observes in his introduction to his commentary on Revelation:
Revelation...is a violent book. Some interpreters argue that because of its violence, it does not belong in a New Testament canon that takes its direction and energy from a Jesus who extended forgiveness to sinners and counseled love even of one's enemies...

Out at the prison we are about to begin a study of the book of Revelation. Over the last few years we've been working our way through the entire Bible. We started in Genesis and now, at long last, we reach Revelation.
This is going to be an interesting study. The men out at the unit have been thoroughly marinated in dispensational theology. Many of them are convinced that we are in, or approaching, the end times. I have my work cut out for me....

Toward the end of 1 John there is a puzzling and controversial passage:
If anyone sees a fellow believer committing a sin that doesn’t lead to death, he should ask, and God will give life to him—to those who commit sin that doesn’t lead to death. There is sin that leads to death. I am not saying he should pray about that...