Imagine if Suetonius or Tacitus wrote about the beginnings of the Trump presidency. Well here’s a crack at it. This is part humor, part history lesson, and part political commentary. Trigger warning: Whether you love or hate Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, you WILL find something here that offends you. I am not going to read any comments. Take it leave it. If this proves to be popular, I might even do another one! — In the eighth year of... Read more
I’m thinking of reviving an old commentary practice of translation, notes, and paraphrase. Something you can find from John Locke to J.B. Lightfoot. For those interested, I’ve tried to do a literal translation designed to de-familiarize the NT, followed up with a creative paraphrase as a feat of initial interpretation, then added some exegetical notes for readers. Translation in Red, Paraphrase in Green, Notes in Black! Paul Introduces Himself to the Romans (Rom 1:1-7) Paulos, a slave of the... Read more
Here is N.T. Wright’s Wycliffe Hall lecture on Undermining Racism. He argues that the church is the “new family of Jesus followers” an “annointed people,” who are “worship-based, spiritually renewed, multi-ethnic, gender blind in leadership, polychrome, mutually supported, outward-facing, culturally creative, socially responsible, fictive kinship group.” Read more
Okay, I’ve read a lot of books on the parables, they are very different, but here are my top ten: Klyne Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Blomberg, Craig L. Interpreting the Parables. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990. Blomberg, Craig L. Preaching the Parables: From Responsible Interpretation to Powerful Proclamation. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2012. Longenecker, Richard N. The Challenge of Jesus’ Parables. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999. Wenham, D. The Parables of Jesus: Pictures... Read more
Now is a good time to point to some forthcoming books by African-American friends of mine about the Bible, culture, and theology. Esau McCaulley – Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise of Hope Growing up in the American South, Esau McCaulley knew firsthand the ongoing struggle between despair and hope that marks the lives of some in the African American context. A key element in the fight for hope, he discovered, has long been the practice of... Read more
Generally speaking Jesus’s parables draw on agricultural imagery, daily village life, stock character types, and everyday situations to discourse on “God, God’s people, and God’s word.”[1] They draw on a “collective store of Jewish imagery”[2] by rehearsing Old Testament images of a farmer and a vineyard or that of a shepherd and his sheep which often describe God’s relationship with Israel. Or else they resource common images for God and Israel such as a master and his servant, a king... Read more
Johnson, Adam J (ed.). Five Views on the Extent of the Atonement. Counterpoints: Bible & Theology, series edited by Stanley N. Gundry. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019. Available at Zondervan, Koorong, and Logos. This volume edited by Adam Johnson deals with the question, ‘For whom did Christ die?’ This is known as the debate over the extent and efficacy of the atonement. Although typically an in-house Protestant dispute, the discussion is noticeable enlarged to include wider perspectives and approaches. The... Read more
I’ve just started reading Robert Chao Romero’s Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2020). As an Australian, I have more proximity and connections to the Christians of Asia and other former British colonies. So I have to plead ignorance about so much of South America and its Christian tradition (that said, learning about Simon Bolivar, the Mexican revolution, and the Cristera uprising has been very illuminating). So this book by Asian-Latino historian Robert Chao... Read more
Edited by Brad Embry, Ronald Herms and Archie T. Wright Early Jewish Literature: An Anthology (2 vols) Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018. Available from Eerdmans. By Andy Judd Early Jewish Literature: An Anthology offers more than seventy selections from Second Temple-era Jewish literature, each introduced and translated by a leading scholar in the field. Organized by genre, this two-volume anthology presents both complete works and substantial excerpts of longer works, giving readers a solid introduction to the major works of the... Read more
In the video below is a lecture I did on Philippians delivered at SEBTS in December 2019. Read more
Euangelion
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