Posts by John McKinley

John McKinley

John McKinley is an associate professor of theology at Talbot School of Theology. He is most interested in the theological questions that touch on personal engagement with God. God is there, but how does God sweep us up into relationship with him existentially? These questions about sanctification, discipleship, and Christology led to McKinley's doctoral study on the temptation experience of Jesus Christ. He has continued to work on the doctrines of Christology, ecclesiology, and sanctification as part of teaching through these topics. McKinley regularly teaches on a Christian perspective of the human body, pulling together a theology of the human body with the best learning from science about nutrition, sport, fashion, medical technology and all that helps us to live in the body God gave us. He enjoys bicycle road racing as a hobby, has worked in youth ministry and urban ministry, and is currently a member of Granda Heights Friends Church in La Mirada.

View full profile

The Good Book Blog
Honoring and Dishonoring God’s Gifts in the Reformation
John McKinley — October 31, 2018
October 31 is Reformation Day. Read Associate Professor of Theology John McKinley's thoughts on this historical event.
The Good Book Blog
God-Talk: Our Father in Heaven
John McKinley — October 29, 2018
Many Christians typically follow the model of directing prayer to “our Father” but switch to the term “God” for conversation and theologizing. Why...
Talbot Magazine
The Purpose in Our Everyday Strains & Pains
How Luther’s theology of the cross helps us see God at work in our suffering
John McKinley — June 20, 2018
Sanctification is a difficult doctrine. One complication is the way the Bible talks about sanctification both as an accomplished status, calling Christians saints who have been sanctified, and how sanctification is an ongoing, lifelong process of God’s work on the Christian.
The Good Book Blog
Administrative Work & Creativity
John McKinley — April 25, 2018
I often prefer to work on projects alone, instead of as part of a group or with a partner. Working alone seems efficient and clear, because I only...
The Good Book Blog
The Balanced Life
Part 4
John McKinley — April 18, 2018
In part 1 , part 2 , and part 3 of this essay, I reflected on what makes for a balanced life in terms of the bodily needs for proper care in...
The Good Book Blog
The Balanced Life
Part 3
John McKinley — April 11, 2018
In part 1 and part 2 of this essay, I reflected on what makes for a balanced life in terms of the bodily needs for proper care in feeding the...
The Good Book Blog
The Balanced Life
Part 2
John McKinley — April 04, 2018
In part 1 of this essay, I reflected on what makes for a balanced life in terms of the bodily needs for proper care in feeding the body. I...
The Good Book Blog
The Balanced Life
Part 1
John McKinley — March 28, 2018
I am not good at balance, but I am aware of the need for it. We all make hundreds of choices every day that are small in themselves, but have...
The Good Book Blog
Small Prayers
John McKinley — February 28, 2018
It is easy for Christians to feel distant from God and overwhelmed with the stresses of daily life. It does not work for us to simply reproach...
The Good Book Blog
"The Jesus Prayer" as Training for Prayer
John McKinley — January 30, 2018
Prayer is unnatural and often dubious, so it is difficult. We wonder if we have the right motives, if we will be heard by God, and if we have...
The Good Book Blog
Same Old Sam, Part 3
John McKinley — December 27, 2017
Imagine in the year 2047 that anti-aging therapies have developed so far that wealthy people not only cease aging, but some have begun to reverse. A few have even started to celebrate reverse birthdays in accordance with their rehabilitated age. “I found a way to fill the gap on my financial aid and expenses.” Tony was Sam’s roommate on the seventh floor college dorm. Sam had the money to buy a house near campus just for himself, but he longed for normalcy and community ...
The Good Book Blog
Same Old Sam, Part 2
John McKinley — December 20, 2017
Imagine in the year 2047 that anti-aging therapies have developed so far that wealthy people not only cease aging, but some have begun to reverse. A few have even started to celebrate reverse birthdays in accordance with their rehabilitated age. At this point, Sam had aged chronologically to ninety-three. Instead of looking ahead or behind, he could only concentrate on the day he was in ...
The Good Book Blog
Same Old Sam, Part 1
John McKinley — December 13, 2017
Imagine in the year 2047 that anti-aging therapies have developed so far that wealthy people not only cease aging, but some have begun to reverse. A few have even started to celebrate reverse birthdays in accordance with their rehabilitated age. Once sixty-seven, Sam now marks his age at forty-two. With the turn around he has re-entered life with friends of his newfound youth ...
The Good Book Blog
Is Hell the Enemy of God and the Christian?
John McKinley — September 27, 2017
In the fourth verse of the popular modern hymn, “In Christ Alone” by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, we hear this line that poses Hell as our enemy: “No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man, Can ever pluck me from His hand.” My ear has been catching a similar idea of Hell as a powerful enemy in several other contemporary worship songs. My guess is that songwriters are (perhaps) unwittingly drawing on Jesus’ statement in Matthew 16:18, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (NASB[1], NIV, NKJV). Other translations give “the gates of hell” (ESV, NLT, KJV; the Greek text has "Hades" not "Gehenna"). I prefer the RSV and NET that give “the powers of death” by interpreting the usage of Hades in line with Sheol of the OT, referring to the place of the dead, particularly for the wicked. The slip of meaning from “Hades” to “Hell” is understandable, but this causes a problem theologically that we need to pause and consider more closely ...
The Good Book Blog
Can There Be Forgiveness Without Repentance? Part 2
John McKinley — June 28, 2017
In Part 1, I observed that Christian forgiveness includes several conditions leading to reconciliation of a relationship that was violated by one person sinning against another. Jesus’ commands that the person wronged must “show him his fault” (Matt 18:15) as the first condition, to be followed by his repentance, and then we may respond by forgiving him. Common Christian talk about forgiveness tends not to include the necessity of repentance; consequently, many Christians attempt forgiveness and yet fail to live in it. Along with this claim that repentance is necessary to forgiveness, I am aware of the need for at least four caveats ...
The Good Book Blog
Can There Be Forgiveness Without Repentance? Part 1
John McKinley — June 21, 2017
The problem I notice is that many times Christians have ongoing difficulty in forgiving those who have wronged them. The strain may go on for many years even as they keep trying to forgive. They frequently assume that there is something wrong with them as being hardhearted and otherwise unloving. They fault themselves for not being able to forgive others. Perhaps these unforgiving Christians are trying to do something that God has not called them to do. Perhaps one-sided forgiveness is actually impossible in the absence of a necessary condition for forgiveness ...
The Good Book Blog
Why Crucifixion as a Metaphor of Sanctification?
John McKinley — April 24, 2017
Romans 6:5-6 has puzzled me by the statement that the believer has in effect already been crucified with Christ. “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” (nasb) My problem may have been that I viewed the crucifixion of my “old self” as having been accomplished entirely in the past, at my conversion. We are to “consider [ourselves] to be dead to sin” (6:11) so that we respond by denying the impulses and attractions to sin that (unfortunately) continue throughout this life. In practice, I have liked the idea of knowing that I am no longer a slave to sin, that I am not obligated to give in to temptations, and that I have a new capability from the Holy Spirit to live as God calls me to do. Is there importance of crucifixion for understanding my present condition? ...
The Good Book Blog
No JABS: A Model for Small-Group Connection, Part 2
John McKinley — April 20, 2017
As the second part in this post on four protections to create a safe relational space for small groups, here I focus on the fourth condition. This fourth condition has four pieces to it for limiting communication that tends to shut people down. The goal is to be able to accept others as they are, with their true sharing of their real mess in daily life as a Christian. Often we can get in our own way and so fail to love them in this way because we are so busy with the speck of sawdust in their eye. In a sentence, this four-part fourth condition is the log in our eyes that prevents meeting with others.
The Good Book Blog
No JABS: A Model for Small-Group Connection, Part 1
John McKinley — April 18, 2017
Small talk. Bible study talk. Prayer requests. Sports, kids, and work talk. When and how do we get to meaningful fellowship of sharing with other Christians what God is doing in our lives? Are there conditions in small groups that help people to share their lives with others? Are there conditions that cause people to clam up and stick to the safe details of a public persona? ...
The Good Book Blog
Parable of the Trees
John McKinley — February 08, 2017
The story that follows is a parable of human experience as essentially relational. People are individuals and vitally connected to others. Everyone lives according to relationships. The overemphasis on our individuality is misleading so that we ignore the ways that other people affect us in beneficial and disabling ways. This parable is an illustration of one sort of benefits and damages through being generated in families ...
The Good Book Blog
Guidance by the Holy Spirit?
John McKinley — February 01, 2017
Does God speak to Christians in dreams or in our hearts? If we have never had this experience, then are we missing something and should expect it? Is there a danger of relying on a personal word from God instead of looking to the definite word of God given as the Bible? ...
The Good Book Blog
The Marvel of Acton University
John McKinley — January 24, 2017
The Acton Institute is a think tank located in Grand Rapids, Michigan to produce many initiatives connected with freedom of religion, economics, and politics. These three areas of thought and practice are usually segregated, but Acton brings them together. The largest initiative is the annual Acton University, a four-day conference in Grand Rapids to draw the strands together with diverse conversation partners ...
The Good Book Blog
3 Theses 51�� Regeneration, Part Three
John McKinley — January 04, 2017
The meaning of regeneration features in one of the ongoing disagreements between dispensational theology and covenant theology when we compare the experience of salvation before and after Pentecost. Covenant theology typically reasons that regeneration is necessary for saving faith (as in effectual calling and grace), so anyone experiencing saving faith was regenerate (e.g., Abraham, other OT saints). This reasoning is part of the assertions about the continuity of the people of God, the continuity of experience of salvation, and the combination of Israel with the church across history (resulting in the church’s replacement of Israel) ...
The Good Book Blog
3 Theses 51�� Regeneration, Part Two
John McKinley — January 02, 2017
Regeneration (gennao anothen, “born again” or, “born from above”) is most clearly stated in John 1:12-13 and 3:3-8. While Nicodemus thinks Jesus is talking about a second birth (“He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” John 3:4, all quotations are from nasb), the alternate possible meaning of birth from above is better since the source of the birth of God that makes one a child of God is more important than the idea of simply being alive again. Perhaps best is to hold both ideas of enlivening spiritual renewal and birth from God (as the new source for one’s existence) ...
The Good Book Blog
3 Theses 51�� Regeneration, Part One
John McKinley — December 28, 2016
Regeneration seems to be one of those topics that theologians argue about while non-experts give little thought to it. Since this is a biblical topic that appears in nearly every book of the New Testament, we should consider this major theme closely and repeatedly. Regeneration is implicated not only in the term “born again,” but also in the many references to Christians as children of God, sons of God, the new self, new creation, having been made alive, and the new Christian familial identity as brothers and sisters to each other. I offer three controversial theses about regeneration to provoke consideration of this important doctrine ...