Nearly 20 years ago a waitress at a well-known breakfast chain messed up my order for hash browns by adding diced ham. If you don’t find anything odd about that sentence, you are, perhaps, a candidate for counseling. But I digress. I had wanted jalapeños, onions, mushrooms, and cheese. I got all of those. Plus…
We like meaning and connections, and we’ll sometimes find them even when they’re not there. People who understand this can deceive you. The Improbability Principle from Neuroblogica is a very good summary of this.
Since I have been reading the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy along with the text, I wanted to place a short note about the response to this passage in that commentary. (The author of the Leviticus portion is Dale A Brueggemann.) He notes the command to slaughter all the males, including the…
(Leave Christology out of it!) Reading the post A Similarity Between Reasoned Eclecticism & Byzantine Priority over on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog (HT: Dave Black Online, Monday, June 6, 12:35), set me to thinking. Fair warning: This will be a bit rambling. These are thoughts triggered by the post, not largely in response to…
Since I wrote recently about biblical culture shock, and have also commented from time to time on our impatience with the process in politics, it was interesting for me to come to Numbers 30 and 31 in my evening reading. [ncs_ad pid=’9780842334280′ adtype=’aer.io’ float=’left’]Numbers 30 is a sort of kinder, gentler sort of culture shock….
Yeah, this will be a short one. Really! [ncs_ad pid=’0664239013′ float=’right’ adtype=’aer.io’]As I’m reading through another commentary on Hebrews (Luke Timothy Johnson, Hebrews, New Testament Library), I can’t help but write a few notes. One might get the idea from a couple of my recent posts that I find a great deal to argue with…
Before I went overseas with my parents at 14 years of age we were all required to be briefed about culture shock. Sometimes people have very negative reactions to encountering cultures different than their own. We saw this happen with people who went to Guyana (where I was for three years and my parents for…
[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 didn’t want to comment on the murder of 49 people in Orlando, not because I don’t sympathize with the victims or condemn the killing, but because I dislike getting tangled up in politics on this blog. If a Christian commits an illegal act, we often separate him (or her) from “our” Christianity, or even…
[ncs_ad pname=’hebrews-ntl’] Despite my somewhat snippy comments in my last post, I found reading Luke Timothy Johnson’s introduction to Hebrews in his volume in the New Testament Library (pictured at left) quite helpful. In particular, he looks at reasons why modern people may have a hard time reading and understanding this book. Along the way,…
