Kevin T. Bauder As you receive In the Nick of Time this week, I will be traveling in Colorado, but I won’t be on vacation. I will be visiting the old Briargate Post Office in Colorado Springs. Why travel to Colorado just to visit a post office? Well, this post office is special. It is… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder As we have seen, 2 Corinthians 11:4 refers to “another Jesus, whom we have not preached” and “another gospel, which ye have not accepted.” I have argued that Paul is not referring to two different things. The identity of Christ is bound up in the truth of the gospel. The Jesus of… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder The gospel is events. The gospel rests upon evidences. The gospel relies upon interpretations. All these elements are necessary to the gospel, rightly understood. Nevertheless, they do not exhaust a right understanding of the gospel. The gospel also rests upon a theological foundation that is implicit in the explanations.</p> <p>Consider the gospel… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder What is the gospel? It is more than simply the plan of salvation, but what more? This question deserves both a negative and a positive answer.</p> <p>Negatively, the gospel is not the whole Christian faith. To say that all the teachings and practices of Christianity are related to the gospel is not… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Fundamentalists have not often appealed to 2 Corinthians 11:4 as a key text for their understanding of ecclesiastical separation. Even a cursory examination of the verse indicates that their reluctance has been well founded. It fairly bristles with interpretive problems, making it the sort of text that provides a hazardous foundation for… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder The American Council of Christian Churches published its whitepaper entitled <em>The Biblical Doctrine of Separation</em> in 2014. This work was motivated by a desire to restate the biblical principles behind ecclesiastical separation in view of a shift that was taking place within fundamentalism. Some younger fundamentalists were abandoning these ideals for involvement… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Ten years ago I authored a chapter and three responses for the book <em>Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism</em>, edited by Andy Naselli and Collin Hansen. My job was both to help readers understand fundamentalism and to respond to the positions represented by other evangelical authors. My approach overall was to… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder One might think that creedalism was a thing of the past, but what’s old is new again. I recently encountered a confession of faith posted as a sign in someone’s lawn. If people take the trouble to post their beliefs on their lawn, then they must think that those beliefs are important—perhaps… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder The New Testament mentions three sorts of gifts connected with the three persons of the Godhead. First, in general, every good and perfect gift comes down from the “Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Second, the ascended Lord Jesus Christ gives certain individuals as… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Central Baptist Theological Seminary held its first commencement in 1957. Except for last year (2020) we have celebrated graduations every year since. As with other seminaries, last year’s ceremonies were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, however, we were able to award degrees to a dozen graduates in three programs.… Continue Reading
This essay was originally published on June 5, 2015. Kevin T. Bauder The state of Israel is in the news at least weekly, sometimes daily. The United States is still the greatest supporter of Israel, but public perception is that the Obama administration’s backing is less than enthusiastic. In spite of this assessment, the Obama… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder One of the best periods in the history of Central Baptist Theological Seminary unfolded during the first two thirds of the 1960s. With Richard V. Clearwaters as president and Warren Vanhetloo as dean, the seminary assembled a cluster of amazingly bright young professors. These included men like Ernest Pickering, Robert Delnay, and… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder The Civil Air Patrol (CAP) was founded less than a week before the invasion of Pearl Harbor. Its purpose was to use general aviation (light planes flown by civilian pilots) to supplement the domestic operations of the United States military. The CAP proved its worth by helping to patrol the borders and… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder This weekend I am traveling to Lake Benton, Minnesota, to address the southwestern fellowship of the Minnesota Baptist Association (MBA). The MBA is the current permutation of what used to be the Minnesota Baptist Convention. It is the organization that W. B. Riley and Richard Volley Clearwaters managed to separate from the… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder According to 2 Timothy 3:16, all scripture is God-breathed or inspired. In other words, inspiration applies to the scriptures themselves, not to the process by which they were produced. The word inspired is a result word, not a process word. The writers were not inspired. The thoughts were not inspired. The various… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder When people think about the inspiration of the Bible, they tend to imagine it as a process. They think of inspiration as a way of stating how the Bible got to be what it is. Trying to answer the how question is one of the reasons that we are surrounded by so-called… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder We all oppose something, but there’s opposition and then there’s opposition. I can think of at least three levels at which our opposition can be pursued. Which level we employ is not simply a tactical or even strategic decision. It is a moral choice. Though the phrase seems antiquated now, we used… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder My friend Dave was ordained in the mid-1980s. The offering for his ordination was supposed to go toward his library. To make the most of it, he decided that he wanted to visit the Christian publishing houses and used bookstores in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He invited me to go along. We lived… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Proverbs 22:7 says that the rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender. This counsel runs contrary to North American sensibilities. The most recent figures (for 2020) indicate that household debt in the United States totals $14.35 trillion, for a mean household indebtedness of $145,000. Of that… Continue Reading
Kevin T. Bauder Last week I began listing the “most interesting books” that I read last year. As you can tell, the list is eclectic. While I read mostly in my discipline, much of the reading that I find interesting is outside it. Here’s the rest of my list. Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage.… Continue Reading