Getting What Was Said
It can be hard to go from a text to a sermon. The line from past to present can be hard work. But at the root, one must hear clearly what was said. Dave Black looks at a text.
It can be hard to go from a text to a sermon. The line from past to present can be hard work. But at the root, one must hear clearly what was said. Dave Black looks at a text.
[ncs_ad pid=’1893729389′ adtype=’aer.io’] I’ve discussed this before, and discussed it both in my books When People Speak for God and Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic. I was asked after my Sunday School lesson last Sunday whether Zephaniah’s prophecy in 3:1-8 applied to America. Let me annoy everyone: No and Yes….
I know I’m beating this topic to death, but I can’t help it. Really I can’t. Or at least I won’t. I was reading Hebrews today, and I ran into some interesting examples, both of positive and (in my opinion) negative uses of italics. Before I look at a couple of cases, however, I do…
Wayne Leman at Better Bibles Blog notes that there is now a blog for the NLT. I note with pleasure that the first post deals in a very balanced way with the widespread belief that dynamic equivalence translation is the same thing as paraphrasing. (One should note that in this case “paraphrasing” is not used…
I’m continuing looking at the NLT Study Bible (NLTSB) in comparison with the New Interpreter’s Study Bible (NISB), which I have also acquired recently. Today I’m going to add a comparison to the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NOAB). Note that I am still working from the second edition. I think many Methodist ministers or ministerial…
… at Exploring Our Matrix. So many posts, so little time. Who can possibly keep up? But this blog is actually linked twice.
… fully demonstrated by Jacob Cerone at ἐνθύμησις (Jonah 1:4c). Just the one clause! Bravo! Write more!
This is well done—but only if you take the Bible literally. I am particularly referring to Dr. Black’s 6th point: “We can endure suffering and persecution because we have placed our hope in Jesus and in His coming back to earth.” Interestingly, Paul could say this because he believed Jesus was to return in his (general) lifetime. But he didn’t. Apocalyptic theology which permeates Paul and most of the New Testament mislead many, including those today who knowingly or unknowingly incorporate the ancient (and now discredited) cosmology of a three-tiered universe where Jesus is located “up there” and will come “down here” sometime. Exegesis that lives only in the ancient world and not in ours where there is nothing outside the cosmos including God, led Paul and continues to lead many others to a false conclusion.
It’s revealing that only Luke’s Gospel has a literal ascension with a projected literal return. In the others, Jesus just fades away. (I know, I know—one is enough.) And Matthew just declares that Jesus never goes away and will be with the church to the end of the age. Seems he need not return because he never left. All this is to say that we have reason to doubt a literal Second Coming based on faulty cosmology.
To move from the first century or from 1000 BCE to our day is no easy thing. Especially if you don’t clarify biblical misconceptions (and they abound) along the way. Imagine the difficulty Abraham would have negotiating our world. Well, we have the same difficulty negotiating his. Yet the move from the text to sermon seems too often to ignore this.