Category: Book of the Month
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A Deeper Look at Romans
The August “special study” was the book of Romans. The curriculum ended up consisting of Preaching Romans: Four Perspectives, a really good book on the book of Romans. In spite of its title, Preaching Romans is not only a collection of sermons, although it does include several sermons, and all of them are interesting ones. […]
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Which Spin Wins in Kings?
The “special study” of the month was the book of Kings (First and Second). Little did I know. [Here’s some backstory: Our daughter swam competitively as a child – I’m a swim mom, not a soccer mom. One thing I learned from being a swim mom: there’s a world of difference between swimming summer league […]
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A Little More Love for Judges?
This month’s “special study” was the book of Judges. The curriculum consisted of Marc Zvi Brettler’s short, interesting non-commentary on the book of Judges. I say “non-commentary,” because Brettler announces explicitly in his preface that the work, a volume in the Old Testament Readings series, is “not intended as a commentary; instead its focus, following […]
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A Deeper Look at Galatians
Personally, I have loved the book of Galatians ever since I was sitting in a hotel room in California after some focus groups when I was trying to quit smoking the first time and ran across this in the Gideons’ Bible: For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit […]
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A Deeper Look at the Book of Job
I did some extra reading on the book of Job over the past month. Here’s what I learned: Job is an unusually complex book, even for the Bible. It includes clear and possibly perplexing divisions in the text: the narrative prologue and epilogue in chapters 1-2 and chapter 42; the carefully structured speeches of the […]
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How Can We Possibly Read Isaiah?
Modern historical critical scholarship reads Isaiah 9:1 as an explicit reference to Israelite provinces annexed by Assyria in 732 BCE, and Isaiah 9:2-7 as a “royal song of thanksgiving” that gives hope to those who wait for YHWH “to act to restore righteous Davidic rule in Israel” (NOAB, note on Isaiah 9:2-7); the “child” “born […]
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Prophetic Lament
This month’s belated study of Lamentations continues with Soong-Chan Rah’s Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015). The book is a volume in the “Resonate” series of commentaries, which addresses itself explicitly to readers who are more familiar with popular culture than scripture. This shows up in […]
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In Review – The Book of Lamentations
Reviewing: David R. Slavitt. The Book of Lamentations: A Meditation and Translation Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001. In this short, painfully beautiful and humane volume, David R. Slavitt shares both his remarkable translation of the book of Lamentations (the Megillat Eichah), and his meditation on the historical background of that book, both before and after […]
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Learning as Revelation
Christians have long accepted the proposition that God acts in and through history. The idea that God acts in history suggests that history itself is, in principle, a legitimate source of revelation. On one hand, this is a dangerous idea. It is at least as difficult to interpret God’s activity and Word in history as […]
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Exegetical Exercise – Ephesians 5 15-16
There is a long section of “paraenetic” material in Ephesians, which my seminary New Testament professor, Marty Soards, told us was there to offset the heady idealistic realized eschatology of chapters 1-3. All of it sounds like the stuff New Year’s resolutions. [In Christ, of course – Ephesians is clear that we don’t have power […]
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Exegetical Exercise – Gifts in Ephesians
The “book of the month” program has given me Ephesians this December. At first this seemed unseasonable, what with no nativity stories, or direct references to Advent. But digging deeper – it turns out there is a lot of “giving” and there are a lot of “gifts” in Ephesians, which certainly resonates with the popular […]
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Exegetical Exercise – Acts
Agrippa said to Festus ‘This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to the emperor.’ Acts 26:32 Acts 26:32 caps off a long stretch of narrative that propels Paul from Macedonia to Jerusalem, from the Temple in Jerusalem into prison, and then through a series of bureaucratic complications that position him […]
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Luke’s Charismatic Theology, Pt. 5
Notes on chapters 5 & 6 of The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke, by Roger Stronstad: Chapter 5, “The Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles – The Charismatic Community in Mission” Stronstad analyzes the book of Acts as the record of the charismatic community in mission, as the record of the “geographic and […]
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Luke’s Charismatic Theology, Pt. 4
Notes on Chapter 4 of Roger Stronstad’s The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke, “the Holy Spirit at Pentecost – the Charismatic Community” – the Pentecost narrative has the same function in Acts as the infancy-inauguration narrative has in the gospel of Luke; it is the initiation narrative. Jesus, who was the bearer of the Spirit, […]
Matters of Interpretation 