In the last post we began to look at the climax of the book of Job in Chapters 38-41, when Yahweh answers Job. Many commentators seem to view this as a rebuke -a diatribe against Job who has incurred God’s wrath in his response to suffering. Perhaps, however, the more accurate view is that God instructs Job from the whirlwind. God’s response to Job is a powerful passage and one that has, it seems to me, significant implications for the... Read more
E.P. Sanders, and then following him J.D.G. Dunn and N.T. Wright, challenged the traditional Christian consensus of how to “read” Judaism at the time of Paul (and Jesus) in 1977 with his well-known and must-read Paul and Palestinian Judaism. The consensus was that Judaism was a works-righteousness religion in which Jews, not on the basis of their covenant-based election by God but on the basis of merit and works, sought to earn favor with God. While there was nuance, and dissenting... Read more
By “Anna”: Instead of starting a new religion, Jesus of Nazareth ushered in a kingdom where he reigns as King. In this kingdom, people are healed physically and spiritually. The poor finally have some Good News. Dead people are raised to new life in Jesus. For any of us to move toward Jesus, the supernatural must occur. The Holy Spirit wind of God must blow through my life, regenerating my enemy soul. In Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, “You must be... Read more
What did women do in the church in the “early church”? (By “early church” I mean after the New Testament up to the 4th Century.) A helpful sketch can be found in Everett Ferguson, The Early Church and Today (vol. 1: Ministry, Initiation, and Worship). Ferguson, one of the world’s finest patristic scholars and a professor emeritus at Abilene Christian University, whom I would call the “F.F. Bruce of Patristics,” finds six major themes, and for each theme Ferguson sketches evidence... Read more
A most unlikely source to remind of the challenges of parenthood comes from the geneaologies of the Bible. My colleague, Claude Mariottini, in his Rereading the Biblical Text: Searching for Meaning and Understanding, devotes a short chapter to a pattern in the geneaologies of the Bible that can be a source of comfort for parents — especially perhaps for parents who have children who have not embraced the faith. From Matthew 1:9-10: Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father... Read more
Stephen Mattson, who teaches at Northwestern in Minneapolis and writes for Sojourners, affirms millennials as like Jesus in four ways: 1. Jesus avoided labels. a large part of his ministry was breaking down preconceived titles, trying to bring about a world where there would be no differentiation between Jew or Gentile. He promoted the idea that loving God trumped racial, ethnic, social, religious, and political identities…. 2. Jesus avoided theological certainty. …Much of Jesus’ teaching was confusing, complex, and often... Read more
The climax of the book of Job comes when Yahweh answers Job, or more accurately instructs Job, from the whirlwind in Chapters 38-41. This long series of posts, and the careful interaction with recent commentaries by John Walton (Job (The NIV Application Commentary)) and Tremper Longman III (Job (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms)), has led us to this climactic passage. God’s response to Job is a powerful passage, and one that has, it seems to me,... Read more
American evangelicalism is what it is because of its gospel. Dallas Willard calls its gospel the “gospel of sin management.” American liberal Protestantism is what it is because of its gospel. Dallas Willard also calls its gospel the gospel of sin management. (Some of you will know I call this gospel the “soterian” gospel in The King Jesus Gospel.) Its emphases — right and left — is forgiveness of sin, eternal life in heaven, assurance in the here and now, and... Read more
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