Today we cannot assume people, even all Christians, understand the Bible's implicit, underlying view of reality. We have to dig it out and show it to people, including Christians, and ask them to "see reality as this" rather than "as that" - where "that" refers to any number of unbiblical ideas about reality.
Roger E. OlsonOnly God has no limits (except those he voluntarily imposes on himself). The mantra "no limits" is actually a call to idolatry.
Roger E. OlsonToo many American (and other) Christians revel in feelings and/or morality and don't care to develop a biblically-shaped Zeitgeist or worldview. The result is folk religion rather than classical, historical Christianity which has always included sound theology.
Roger E. OlsonIf the biblical writers were writing today they might spell out some things more clearly, given how easily even Christians fall into thinking in ways alien and foreign to the biblical story of God and creation.
Roger E. OlsonThe idea of having no limits, either through education or money or possessions or power, is radically alien to everything the Bible assumes and says.
Roger E. OlsonThe biblical writers assumed many things about reality that modern, Western people do not assume because we've been conditioned by our cultures to assume otherwise.
Roger E. OlsonWe, including many Christians, read the Bible through "eyes" conditioned by, and even accommodated to, modern Western culture plus the influences of messages and ideas from other cultures that are alien to the worldview of the biblical writers. Therefore, in order fully to understand the Bible and allow the Bible to absorb the world (rather than the world - culture - absorb the Bible) we must practice an "archaeology" of the biblical writers' implicit, assumed view of reality.
Roger E. Olson