I was asked by a student if the early Jews (of the second Temple period) held to a canon of the likes of the later Church. Here is my brief response: No. There was considerable debate. For instance, the Sadducees of Jesus’ day only held to the Torah/Pentateuch. They rejected everything else. Same with the… Continue reading Brief Comments on the Old Testament as Canon
I received the following great news yesterday that a symposium on “Re-Examining Pentecostal Readings of Female Characters in the Bible” has been approved for the 2019 Society for Pentecostal Studies annual meeting. Here are the details of the symposium: I am incredibly grateful to be a participant and am looking forward to presenting with these… Continue reading Re-Examining Pentecostal Readings of Female Characters in the Bible – SPS Symposium
For the last several years I’ve provided my congregation with several potential Bible reading plans included in our Sunday bulletin the first of the year: M’Cheyne Reading Plan (with several variables) and For Shirkers and Slackers. The former offers an intensive reading of the NT books as part of the program. It is quite a… Continue reading Read More
As someone who serves as an Instructor in Old Testament at one college (Providence University College and Theological Seminary) and an Assistant Professor whose primary focus is in Old Testament at another college (Trinity Bible College), this question has significant concern for me. Yet, more significantly this question is of paramount concern for me as… Continue reading Do We Really Need the Old Testament?
Suffice it to say that one spends several years learning basic skills in reading and interpreting the Hebrew Bible, but then after all the “rules” one learns (whether those passed down from Medieval Masoretes or ancient scholastics schooled in Greek and Latin works), suddenly one enters the strange world of Hebrew “Poetry”. This strange new… Continue reading On Hebrew Poetics (A Brief Introduction and Refutation)
Here are my “Seven Leadership Principles (Hopefully No One Has Ever Taught) From Ezra-Nehemiah” (I’m still waiting on the book deal): (7) Demand that all members divorce any foreigners (Ezra 9-10) (6) Remove from membership anyone missing a special business meeting (Ezra 10:8) (5) Always carry a weapon to attack those who oppose your work… Continue reading Seven Leadership Principles From Ezra-Nehemiah
What are your thoughts on the foundational grounds of a doctrinal statement? This is where doctrinal statements (and creeds) begin. Is the Church better served by a statement which flows from the doctrine of God as foundational (exemplified by the Gospel Coalition statement) or the doctrine of Scripture as foundational (such as the one adopted… Continue reading First Things First – The Doctrine of God or the Bible?
The more I study the Scriptures, the more I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the Scriptures…and by the God who has inspired writers in their own day and culture to write with beauty. The deeper I dig, the more treasures I discover. It never ceases to amaze me what depths of literary fashioning the… Continue reading The Beauty of the Bible
The first assignment of the semester for my Former Prophets class was to read Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel, and 1-2 Kings in two different translations and give me several pages of questions, comments, and insights about the texts. They could also include things which stood out to them in comparing/contrasting the translations they chose. I… Continue reading When the Bible Comes Alive
