Scot McKnight discusses the problem with the popular understanding of Revelation. I recall guest teaching a Sunday School class on Revelation from the study guide I wrote (currently not available as I revise it). The major question from the class was when I was going to talk about the seven-year tribulation and whether I was…
Sometimes the process of preparing to teach Sunday School takes interesting turns, at least for me. I’m currently teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, and I was thinking about the transition from the beatitudes to the discussion of fulfilling the law. Sometimes we get so used to the way Scripture passages read that we…
This article is quite helpful in understanding what biblical criticism is, how it is helpful, and also how it may be threatening to some. Here’s a quote: The basic point, however, is an important one: until we know what kind of material we are dealing with, we don’t know what questions it is sensible to…
Well, perhaps, “choosing” should be “recognizing.” Weird? Doesn’t make sense? Read on! In the late 1990s I participated in a program here in Escambia County called CommUNITY Dialogues, led by a creative and interesting communications specialist (and I had not, up to that time, used “creative” or “interesting” with regard to such people!) named Dr….
It’s a common question, but it’s one I don’t like: What does that Greek word really mean? (You can substitute Hebrew or Aramaic for Greek.) The basic problem is the assumption that a word “really” means anything specific. Underlying this is a tendency to think that one discovers the meaning of a communication by mentally…
Yesterday I taught the Sunday School lesson for my class. The primary scripture was Exodus 32, the story of the golden calf. Our Adult Bible Studies title for the lesson was “The Permission Trap” and the goal was “To recognize the consequences of giving ourselves permission to do that which we know to be wrong.”…
I posted an extract from Dave Black’s blog on The Jesus Paradigm today. (I do this because you can’t link to a specific post on Dave’s blog, and I have his permission.) Dave is talking about Galatians 5:13-15, and what freedom means. Rather than commenting on this passage myself, I want to put a quote…
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.
No, this is not a post about the crazy ways people interpret the Bible. It’s about the way in which people make precision difficult in communication. Am I thinking about biblical interpretation? Of course I am. If you have to guess what I’m thinking about and I don’t give you a clue, “biblical interpretation” is…
A weakness of a great deal of Bible study is in the failure to truly see the details. In our normal conversations we have multiple contextual clues including shared history and knowledge. When reading scripture, we have to be more careful, because it is not addressed directly to us, and we often don’t share those…
