By Jonathan Moreno. From DBSJ 22 (2017): 75-90. Republished with permission. Read the series.

Lingering Concerns

In an effort to present the greatest-glory defense with sharper clarity, this section will seek to address three objections that may be levied against it. Although this defense may encounter countless additional objections, the three selected seem to be the most pertinent to the discussion.

How Is God Good?

One accusation…

Scripture is clear—Proverbs in particular—that there are such things as fools and these individuals are nothing but trouble. We shouldn’t be in their company more than necessary—much less put important responsibilities in their hands.

Though the English word “fool” appears 60 to 65 times in most English versions of Proverbs, the book doesn’t offer a concise definition. That leaves us with some ambiguity. How many of the traits of fools does someone have to have to be rightly classified as a fool? Are we supposed to take the qualities of fools only as way to gauge the degree…

As much as it might seem to stretch the barriers of time, I was taught to preach by a man who sat under the ministry of none other than Dr. Henry (Harry) Allan Ironside—the so-called “archbishop of fundamentalism.”

In fact, Dr. Ironside is my spiritual and theological grandfather on at least two different counts.

First, he was indeed the pastor of my practical theology professor in seminary—Dr. Ralph Turk, one of my own mentors. Dr. Turk spent his earliest years in The Moody Church, where Ironside served as pastor from 1930 to 1948.

Secondly, Ironside was…