Thanks to Timothy Gombis, I came across this stimulating piece by Siu Fung Wu in Sight- Seeing. Listen to the opening biographical element: I was born in a relatively poor urban neighbourhood in Asia. As a child I had to work to earn money so that we could have enough to make ends meet. Everyone in the family worked long hours in order to survive. We didn’t have a bedroom and the whole family slept in one bed. I find... Read more

Paul and Judaism: Crosscurrents in Pauline Exegesis and the Study of Jewish Christian Relations Edited by Reimund Bieringer & DidierPollefeyt LNTS 461; London: T&T Clark, 2012. This is a funky volume of essays on Paul with contributions from Mark Nanos, Michael Bachmann, William Campbell, Thomas Blanton, Michael Bird, plus others, with an epilogue by James Dunn. It tackles both Paul’s relationship to Judaism and how that is appropriated in Jewish-Christian relations today. It is based on conference held in Leuven,... Read more

Over at an Australian on-line newspaper called The Punch, I have an article on Where Have All the Good TV Catholics Gone? It is about anti-catholic prejudice in the entertainment and news industries. Here’s an excerpt: I grew up watching the brightly Sally Field in The Flying Nun and was hypnotized by The Father Dowling Mysteries where I secretly wanted to marry Sister Stephanie! Where have all the good TV Catholics gone? They’ve been replaced with one dimensional stock characters,... Read more

Test your knowledge of the Gospels 1. How many verses are there in the Gospel of Mark? a. 545 b. 602 c. 661 d. 717 (more…) Read more

I know Mother’s Day falls on different days in different countries. In the UK for example, I believe Mother’s Day was on March 18th. But in the US and Australia today, May 13th, is Mother’s Day. So I want to wish my mom Karen, my wife Karla and mother-in-law Mary a very happy Mother’s Day. I love you. I am thankful to God for you. We wish all the mother’s who read our blog a very blessed day. Mother’s are... Read more

Can you discern your motives? In ministry with college students I often hear this idea repeated in one form or another: “Before I do this thing or go in this direction, I want to be sure I’m doing it with the right motives”; “Is it only something I want to do, or is God really calling me to do it?” I have thought about this over the years both in pastoral conversations and in my own discipleship. More than once... Read more

Together with the uber-talented Rev. Dr. Sarah Harris of Carey College, we’ve written a short piece on Paul, homosexuality, Rom 1:26-27, and the Anglican Communion, for a forthcoming book tentatively called Sexegesis: An Evangelical Response to Five Uneasy Pieces on Sexuality and Scripture (title may yet change, but it’s due out mid-year). See the original book we are responding to here. In particular, we are dealing with the arguments by Rev. Peta Sherlock, an Anglican priest in Melbourne. Here’s part... Read more

Eric Metaxas gives a response to Dan Savage on bullying in a post called A Savage Attack, and he makes some insightful comments about tolerance: Tolerance used to be defined as a willingness to put up with the beliefs or practices of those with whom we disagree. Today, tolerance means we must accept the beliefs and practices of others as correct — or risk being called a bigot. It’s interesting that this redefinition of tolerance almost always involves debates over homosexuality —... Read more

Journeys of Faith: Evangelicalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Anglicanism Edited by Robert L. Plummer. Foreword by Scot McKnight Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012. Available at Amazon.com. I like Robert Plummer, not just because he’s one of the few elite biblical scholars in the world who is shorter than me, but because he’s edited a lovely book on a riveting subject. Why do some Christian leaders change their denominations, often radically? The book was naturally of interest to me given my... Read more

Over at Books & Culture, one of my favourite scholars, Robert H. Gundry reviews a book by one of my other favourite scholars, N.T. Wright, specifically, looking at his Kingdom New Testament (also known as The New Testament for Everyone Translation in the UK). Gundry’s review is called Tom’s Targum. After listing the pros and cons in the translation, Gundry concludes: Does KNT work, then, as a translation in the sense taken for granted by J&J when reading both KNT’s subtitle, “A Contemporary... Read more