I have been teaching The Minor Prophets this semester and as we covered Joel I was struck by the use of Joel which John makes in the Revelation (particularly chapter 9) of the book of Joel. Here are some connections I noticed in my brief study (followed by a few random reflections): The sounding of… Continue reading Joel and The Revelation: Sounding the Trumpet
Thanks to IVP Academic for providing a review copy of Porter, Stanley E. and Matthew R. Malcolm, eds., The Future of Biblical Interpretation: Responsible Plurality in Biblical Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 176pp. I offer the following review of this volume: The Bible encompasses a plurality of voices, not only in genre but… Continue reading The Future of Biblical Interpretation: A Book Review
Daniel Block offers some basic (but essential) advice to students of Scripture to study the text as primary, rather than turning to other sources first. “When you are wrestling with biblical texts, wrestle with the texts.” (see more at Koinonia).
The Resurgence has posted The Beginner’s Guide to Interpreting Old Testament Law and offered the commonly received Reformed categorization of the Torah as ceremonial, civil and moral. The problem is that this is an external distinction not found in the text of Scripture itself. And while it may be helpful as a basic categorization to… Continue reading How NOT to Interpret the OT Law
“What man needs is not just the persistent posing of ultimate questions, but the sense of what is feasible, what is possible, what is correct, here and now.” (Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method [trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall; 2nd rev.ed.; New York: Continuum, 2002], p.xxxviii). In my “leisure” reading, I’m working through a number… Continue reading Playing with Gadamer
“Literature is important for ethics because literature is as complicated as life itself, and cannot be decoded or boiled down. Ethical insight comes from reading it–first sequentially and then reflectively–not from trying to extract a ‘message’ from it.”* This is one of the primary problems I have witnessed in folks reading and preaching from the… Continue reading Literature for Ethics and Theology
Yesterday I preached from Matthew 15:29-39 about the feeding of the 4,000 (men, less women and children and not to be confused with the feeding of the 5,000 men plus women and children [Matthew 14:13-21]): 29 Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down.… Continue reading Hungry with Questions
I recently read something by Lesslie Newbigin (that great missionary statesman of the twentieth century) that struck a chord with me. He wrote the following concerning the Jerusalem congregation’s recognition of the validity of the Gentile mission that Peter had just returned from (Acts 10-11): “They were silenced because they had to recognize something new.… Continue reading Forever Listening to the Spirit
