Since I’m revising my Hebrews study guide, and have been for more than a year, I can bring up complaints against the old one. One of the most common complaints was that people had a hard time connecting the background reading to the current passage. I included three reading lists: 1) Minimum reading, 2) Extra…
As most of my readers know, I’ve been working on revising my study guide to Hebrews. At least I keep mentioning it. I’m only about two years overdue on the project. When one deadline or another must be missed I tend to miss mine and work on other people’s stuff. So today I was reading…
We had an interesting discussion today in Sunday School. We were discussing the 3rd chapter of my book When People Speak for God, titled Messengers – God and Prophet. The questions at hand were just what is prophecy, who are God’s messengers (with a side-order of how can you tell) and how does getting a…
I couldn’t end this run of posts on 1 Thessalonians 1 without commenting on the content of the passage: Paul’s prayer of thanks. (See posts on structure and translation survey.) I think it’s important to notice what Paul is thankful for. He is thankful first for the fact that they received the Word and that…
In a few minutes I’m leaving to teach Sunday School and we’re talking about the inspiration and authority of scriptures and/or of people who claim to speak for God. But first, I thought I’d write a quick note on the recent discussion of violence in the Old Testament hosted by Allan Bevere. (To follow this…
I’m continuing to read from the commentary on Hebrews by David L. Allen (Hebrews in the New American Commentary). I’m bound to get way ahead in my reading but I want to make a few remarks about the prologue, which both Dr. Allen and I would say goes through verse 4. I have written on…
Anyone who has made a serious effort to teach from the Gospel of John has likely experienced the difficulty of giving people a clear picture of the connections between various parts of the book, not to mention the frequent allusions to passages in the Hebrew scriptures. One can easily run out of fingers to “hold…
I dislike study Bibles. I almost said I hate them, but since I do tolerate some of them, that would be overstating the case. My problem with them is that they tend to blur the distinction between the text that we’re studying and the commentary made about it. I have managed to keep my annoyance…
David Allen has an excellent series of posts on this passage (HT: David Alan Black), which I think is the key to the entire book. I am, of course, especially impressed with the fact that much of what he says is compatible with the way I believe the passage should be interpreted! Agree or disagree,…
The Pentateuch is one key source for Christian debates about the treatment of aliens (especially illegal aliens) here in the United States. There are a number of commands that might apply, and they are interpreted differently, or perhaps seen as applicable or inapplicable, by the different sides in fairly predictable ways. For example, Leviticus 19:34…