Our pastor at Chumuckla Community Church started a sermon series on the book of James. This provoked me to look again at Bruce Epperly’s little book Holistic Spirituality: Life Transforming Wisdom from the Letter of James. Here’s a sample: Despite Martin Luther’s misguided dismissal of James as “an epistle of straw,” due to James’ emphasis…
I’m working through key elements of Galatians 3 & 4 tonight and drawing in some material from Romans and elsewhere. My main topic will be to look at Paul’s use of the word “law” in these passages. My main references other than the Bible text will be Galatians: A Participatory Study Guide pp. 43-47 and…
You foolish Galatians! Who put you under a spell? Was not Jesus the Messiah clearly portrayed before your very eyes as having been crucified? 2 I want to learn only one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the actions of the Law or by believing what you heard? (Galatians 3:1-2, ISV, from…
This will continue the discussion, dealing more with definitions. In the area of soteriology (the study of salvation) we frequently make the same statements in terms of words and structure, yet mean something quite different by it. “Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins” means quite different things, depending on who…
Perfectionism is an interesting trait, and can be quite destructive. United Methodist pastors are still asked whether they are going on toward perfection, though I have found few who expressed great comfort with the required “yes” answer, and not a few who had their fingers crossed. The line comes from Hebrews 6:1, and the more…
We’re going to start our look at Paul’s soteriology by reading Galatians 2:15-3:18 and looking at Bruce Epperly’s fourth lesson in Galatians: A Participatory Study Guide, “The Dynamics of Grace.” Here’s a quote: Three key words are present in Galatians – grace, justification, and faith. Put simply, grace is God’s love embodied in the life,…
Last night for my perspectives on Paul series I reviewed what we’ve discussed so far and wrapped up my discussion of Paul’s claim to authority as an apostle. I can summarize this as follows: The Bible records religious experience, i.e., people’s experience of God in one way or another. (Even revelation, such as a vision,…
I’ll review a bit of our material and where we are and then proceed with Lesson 2 of Bruce Epperly’s book, Galatians: A Participatory Study Guide. As I’ll be talking a bit about interpretation, let me also embed my chat with Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. from Tuesday night (01/03/2017).
For it was appropriate for him, for whom everything exists and through whom everything exists, in bringing many children to glory, the pioneer of their salvation to perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10, very literal) I wouldn’t suggest that any Greek students translate the way I just did, or your Greek teacher may suggest you learn…
Dave Black just posted a note on the authorship of Hebrews which brings up an important point: Fact checking. This comes up all over the place these days. It’s so easy to just quote something you’ve heard or to reference a secondary source when a primary source is available. As an editor I’m reminded of…