The Foolishness of Theological Polemics

. Drawing on Walter C. Kaiser Jr.'s promise-plan theology, Gary R. Habermas's historiographical minimal-facts method (as reported in his published surveys), Marvin R. Wilson's account of Hebraic wisdom, and the Sermon-on-the-Mount speech ethic developed by David P. Gushee and Glen H. Stassen, it argues that converting tertiary disagreements over prophetic sequence into verdicts of damnation strips biblical terms of their literary referents and damages public Christian witness. Exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15:35–50, read with Matthew 25:1–13, 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12, 1 John 2:18–22, 2 Peter 3:15–17, and Revelation 22:18–19, shows that Paul'snnaddresses resurrection-skeptics, not modern rapture charts. The constructive alternative is critical-realist, text-immanent biblical theology practiced with epistemological humility: primary gospel essentials remain non-negotiable, while secondary…

Public video platforms, comment threads, and subscription newsletters now function as a digital Areopagus. Ideas about Scripture, history, and hope are contested daily before an audience that the authors of the New Testament could not have imagined. The structural incentives of those platforms, however, reward speed, outrage, and slogan more readily than patience, lexical work, or genre-sensitive reading. The result is notnnin the apostolic sense—extended, accountable conversation around the text—but tribal performance (Carson, 1996; Bates, 2026a).