Narrative and truth
October 8, 2015
Historical narration serves truth. … More Narrative and truth
Tag: New Testament
The Incarnational Paradox of the Bible
October 1, 2015
How does God’s word relate to human words? How does God speak in the Bible? I am currently teaching two sections of a freshman course, New Testament History and Religion. On Wednesday we covered the portions of Luke’s gospel that deal with wealth and contrasted them with what 1 Timothy 6 says about wealth. Luke’s … More The Incarnational Paradox of the Bible
A Sermon on Encountering the Word of God
September 17, 2015
Here is a sermon that I recently delivered. It’s about the circumstances of life in which we can hear God speak. It’s an exposition of Luke 9:58-62 (let the dead bury the dead) and a story about my encounter with a homeless couple, an encounter that, I think, put me in the same situation as … More A Sermon on Encountering the Word of God
The Unsettling Encounter with the Word of God
September 15, 2015
To be human is to receive the divine command or question and to respond. … More The Unsettling Encounter with the Word of God
Veiling women and the word of God
September 8, 2015
Last week I raised the question of progressive revelation within the Bible. I noted that Christians generally acknowledge that the New Testament reveals God in a fuller way than does the Old Testament. (This statement obviously requires qualification. Martin Luther, for instance, believed that parts of the OT reveal Christ while parts of the NT … More Veiling women and the word of God
Progressive Revelation?
September 1, 2015
I’ve received a request to write a 1000 word essay on “progressive revelation” for the Global Wesleyan Dictionary of Biblical Theology, so I’m turning my thoughts to that topic. For many Christians, “progressive revelation” has a sinister meaning, conjuring up images of Joseph Smith receiving the book of Mormon from the angel Moroni. The fear … More Progressive Revelation?
Practicing discernment and discrimination
August 25, 2015
Are we permitted to use human judgment in our reading and interpreting the Bible? … More Practicing discernment and discrimination
Psalm 137 and Infanticide
August 17, 2015
In my last two or three journal posts, I wrote about biblical narratives that seem to be about one thing but are in fact about something else–narratives in which the meaning that lies on the surface of the texts differs from the original purpose of the text. The genocide passages in Joshua, for instance, seem … More Psalm 137 and Infanticide
The “Jews” in John’s Gospel
August 7, 2015
We are entering election season; hyperbolic rhetoric is already fills the political air like humidity in the South. We all know that often political rhetoric often seems to be about one thing but is really about something else–it has a subtext that is known but not talked about. Discussions about immigration are, for some people, … More The “Jews” in John’s Gospel
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