We can’t possibly trot through the whole of Luke’s Gospel so I want to focus on one element of Luke’ Story because it opens up the entire Gospel. Luke’s Gospel, like the rest of the Bible, focuses on the covenant community of faith instead of on an individual’s relationship with God. If you read Luke together with Acts you see that what Luke wants to tell us is that the transition from Israel to the Church is now complete and... Read more
The next seven verses are some of the most fought-over verses in the Bible. These verses led Luther to his famous “right strawy epistle.” It led him to put James further back in the German New Testament. Calvin wrestled these verses into shape. We fight over these verses because they appear to be teaching what post-Reformation Christians don’t teach. Here are the verses from James 2: 20 You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was... Read more
We are discussing Tom Wright’s new book , a book that responds to John Piper’s criticism of Wright and the New Perspective (Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision ). The 2d chp of this book deals with the rules of engagement. Here is Wright’s simple approach: “The rules for engagement for any debate about Paul must be, therefore, exegesis first and foremost, with all historical tools in full play, not to dominate or to squeeze the text out of shape... Read more
We continue our discussion of Kent Sparks’s book God’s Word in Human Words (GWHW) moving into Chapters 2 and 3: Historical Criticism and Assyriology and The Problem of Biblical Criticism. Before diving into the topic of Biblical Criticism, Sparks considers Historical Criticism in the context of the study of the history and languages of ancient Mesopotamia, a truly fascinating topic. This is my kind of light reading. I have Kramer’s The Sumerians (a great book), Woolley’s The Sumerians, Oppenheim’s Ancient... Read more
If “kingdom” is the solution, what is the problem? Jesus’ gospel message of the kingdom of God is itself a blue parakeet for many today. In fact, many have tamed Jesus’ blue parakeet message of the kingdom and this chapter may well provide a reason why some feel this way. Encountering Jesus’ kingdom gospel not only makes us think, but it makes us think we just might have gotten lots of things wrong. It makes us rethink how we are... Read more
These two verses are considered by some to be the most difficult verses in the whole Bible to interpret. Questions abound for all. Here’s the NIV translation of James 2:18-19: 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that-and shudder. The problems begin with the “you” saying what one... Read more
This was posted last week at Out of Ur blog but I’d like to re-post it here. A peculiar development occurred in the medieval age about love. Behind closed doors and in the rush of brief encounters there developed what has been called “courtly love” or “romantic love.” Married men found themselves emotionally carried away with either another married woman or a single woman. This courtly love, so we are told, remained at the emotional and non-physical level. Some call... Read more
Henry David Thoreau, in Walden (Everyman’s Library) , observed: “For the improvement of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of [our] existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors” (11). That is, we are prone these days to sail away with our observations about how much we have changed, about how so much is different, and Thoreau may just take the wind of those sails. Reduced to its basics,... Read more
Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. Read more
Kris and I fly to Paris and then down to South Africa today (and tomorrow!), where I will be giving some lectures in Pretoria and Stellenbosch about a variety of topics, including a conversation between professors and pastors about the Book of Acts and Missional Theology. It is unlikely that we will have regular editions of our “Weekly Meanderings” the next two weeks, but we’ve got some links for you this week. Here’s a picture of Pretoria: We hope Zuma... Read more
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