We’re on the home stretch of the next presidential election, and we’re left with three possible candidates: Bernie “Feel the Bern” Sanders, Hillary “Email Extraordinaire” Clinton, and Donald “I Have Big Hands” Trump. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I don’t fully identify with any particular candidate (though I do have my leanings, of course.) I certainly want the leader that not only represents me best in their speeches, but mostly in their...
People who know me or are even acquainted with me know that I worry—a lot—about almost everything. I become anxious over minor, insignificant matters. I overthink things. I often feel like things “just won’t work out” the way I hoped. Lots of people might be able to relate to this as they struggle with anxiety about their present situations or what the future might hold. Christians often struggle with anxiety over sin (issues of guilt,...
The early Church father Tertullian once asked a similar question to explore the connections between Christianity and Greek thought. This question is designed to explore a literary connection between how we watch movies and how we read the Bible. The issue here is how are we to interpret the Old Testament narratives? Are they history or a story? How we understand the genre of the historical books in the OT will determine how we read,...
Owens, Mark D. As It Was in the Beginning: An Intertextual Analysis of New Creation in Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Ephesians. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015. Paperback. 241 pages. Retail: $29.00. ISBN: 9781498202404 In As It Was in the Beginning, Mark D. Owens compares “new creation” concepts in Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Ephesians through an intertextual analysis that focuses on Old Testament allusions and traditions. He suggests that the three letters exhibit a close correlation in...
deClaissé-Walford, Nancy, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth LaNeel Tanner. The Book of Psalms. Edited by Robert L. Hubbard. New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014. 1051 pages. Hardcover. Retail: $60.00 The Book of Psalms is a single volume commentary published in Eerdmans New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT) series. It is the work of three authors, Nancy deClaisse-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth LaNeel Tanner, each of whom authored individual...
Block, Daniel I. Obadiah: The Kingship Belongs to YHWH. Hearing the Message of Scripture: A Commentary on the Old Testament, 27. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013. 116 pages + 12 pages of indices. Hardcover. Retail: $19.99. With the publication of Obadiah: The Kingship Belongs to YHWH, Daniel Block (Wheaton College, IL) launches a new commentary series, of which he is the general editor, entitled Hearing the Message of Scripture: A Commentary on the Old Testament....
Returning from the mailbox, you flip through the stack that is your recent prize. You begin the important task of separating the pertinent letters from the ones that will be quickly discarded without even being read. Postcards and invitations in one stack, ads in another; bills, the things you wish you could throw away, on the right; another pile that is placed closest to the trash belongs to the mis-delivered. A Mr. So-and-So has not...
In his commentary on Amos, Hans Walter Wolff writes, …Amos with his message of judgement thrusts Israel back among the nations, there appears here a negative print of Pentecost. The wall between God’s people and the nations of the world is already being broken down. The Church will suffer damage if it does not allow to be utterly eradicated that sense of special privilege which, despite Amos, gained strength again in Israel. There are religious...
Brueggemann, Walter. Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2014. 165 pages. Softcover. Retail: $15.00. In Reality, Grief, Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks, Walter Brueggemann suggests that the ancient Israelite ideological crisis caused by the destruction of Jerusalem can act as an analogy for the modern American ideological crisis caused by 9/11 and that the prophetic response of ancient Israel should act as the pattern for the modern church’s response. This...
On my trip to India over spring break—which you can read a little bit about here—I brought along a delightful little introduction to Old Testament Criticism by Mark S. Gignilliat, called, A Brief History of Old Testament Criticism: From Benedict Spinoza to Brevard Childs (check it out on Amazon). Gignilliat, who is Associate Professor of Divinity/Old Testament at Beeson Divinity School (Samford University), holds a doctorate from the University of St Andrews (which is, btw,...
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