“What starts as gratitude quickly becomes dependency and ends as entitlement.”— Cicero on the grain dole for the masses in Rome. On Easter Saturday, we take a Sabbath’s rest from the Holy week contemplations to think seriously about an issue which has bedeviled America for some time. If you ask me the root of the problem comes from too much insistence on rights without an equal insistence on responsibilities, but perhaps there are many root causes. Whatever may be the... Read more

DEATH BE NOT PROUD (Phil. 1.12-26; 1 Cor. 15.54-58; II Tim. 4.6-8) DEADLY APPROACHES TO DEATH When all is said and done, there are only a few ways we humans can react to death. We can recognize it as a fact, and so let it dominate our thinking that it casts a shadow on all life, leaving nothing without the taint of its limiting nature. A person in this frame of mind will likely think that since death is a... Read more

Who would have guessed in September 2010 when Downton Abbey’s first season began to air in the U.K. that yet another period piece from the adept British producers of endless period pieces (think Brideshead Revisited or even Poldark) would take the world by storm? And yet, through adept writing and casting by Julian Fellowes and beautiful mansions and costumes and trains and cars, and story lines that were addictive and good acting by actors we had largely never seen before... Read more

Q3.BEN: In terms of methodology, you decided to follow the lead of the modern rhetorical approach of Vernon Robbins and his distinguishing of various ‘textures’ in the text (e.g. ideological texture, sacred texture etc.) as opposed to analyzing the material on the basis of historical rhetorical analysis. In addition on the social front, you have chosen to follow the lead of modern cultural anthropology as applied to the NT by Bruce Malina in his influential NT World volume instead of... Read more

One of the classic ways to either change the subject or stop a conversation is by labeling something mere prejudice. The conversation then changes if the speaker believes they are being shamed into being quiet. Indeed, often the conversation just stops. For example, when someone objects to some aspects of gay or lesbian or transgender sexual behavior, which for thousands of years has been critiqued as forms of sexual immorality by all sorts of intelligent people (doctors, lawyers, ministers, scientists,... Read more

JOB DESCRIPTION When comfort turns to torment And solace leads to pain Then Job will find his master and Receive his life again. When ashes without number Burn on the funeral pyre Then suffering is consumed And an end is made through fire. Yet through the fire a figure Stands golden, purified The one who once was taunted Has now been justified. Not through the will of mortals Nor through the countless saints Can come the vindication Of Job’s quite... Read more

Let’s be honest— racism is a really ugly sin. It has ruined far too many lives, and it is still a major problem in America. Yes, we’ve made some progress in my lifetime, but not nearly enough. If you doubt this, remember last year and what happened in Ferguson, Missouri or Baltimore Maryland, or, or, or… The Jesse Owens story is unfortunately not merely a story about athletic greatness, though it is that. It is also a story about the... Read more

Dr. Sue Liubinskas, who recently successfully defended her doctoral thesis on Paul and ethnography here at Asbury has graciously agreed to share her testimony as to how she came to this point in life, prepared now to assume a significant teaching ministry wherever the Lord opens the door. I am so very proud of her, having seen her persevere through many trials to get to the doctoral finish lines. I’m also pleased to give you advance notice that we are... Read more

The use of the notion of prophecy and fulfillment has always been a major way of trying to relate the two testaments, and in addition the notions of type and ante-type also aided the attempt to relate the two testaments. Christian thought has always fought to insist that the whole Bible is God’s Word, and no denigration of the OT or neglect of it is adequate as Christian theology. In the name of modern inter-faith dialogue, Brueggemann and R. Rendtorf... Read more

According to Gerhard Ebeling church history is the exposition of Scripture. As Childs says in his conclusions, no one interpretative schema, singular creedal formula, or philosophical or theological system has been employed throughout the ages to make sense of Isaiah. There are however what he calls discernable characteristic features to the way Christians interpret the text, a positive repeated pattern if you will. First, and perhaps most obvious is the assumption that the Bible is the Word of God, inspired... Read more