The gospel comes to the Jews first. When they resist, Paul turns to the Gentiles. But he hopes to provoke the Jews to jealousy by his ministry among the Gentiles, so that in the end Jews would be saved along with Gentiles. The gospel moves from Jew to Gentile and back to Jew. The NT canon, arguably, does something similar. The gospels describe Jesus’ work in Israel, with the occasional contact with Gentiles. Acts begins in Jerusalem, but ends with... Read more
1) Jesus’ infancy anticipates His passion, a point that Matthew makes by including multiple verbal and thematic connections between his opening and closing chapters. One example: Matthew is the only NT writer to quote Jeremiah by name, and he quotes him twice – in 2:18 and 27:9-10. The first describes the slaughter of the infants, the latter the field purchased with Judas’s blood-money. Since Matthew is presenting Jesus as the true “son,” the true Israel (2:15), this parallel of beginning... Read more
It’s hard to write about prayer without being gimmicky or excessively pious. In his recent book, Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To (Doubleday), Anthony DeStefano, author of the best-selling, A Travel Guide to Heaven , avoids these pitfalls. Mostly. The title itself suggests something gimmicky: Pop in a prayer, and watch the answer drop out the bottom of the machine. And there are moments in the book when he verges toward the tone of the title. I’m not sure,... Read more
Zeno of Verona wrote, “As the devil by his implausibility had found a way into the ear of Eve, inflicting a deadly wound, so Christ, entering the ear of Mary, brushes away all the heart’s vices and heals the woman by being born of the Virgin.” Read more
For Protestants, one of the best pieces of news in the past century has been the revival of biblical studies among Catholics. It’s been said (by Mark Noll, of all people!) that, with the new Catholic lectionary, more Scripture is read in Catholic worship than in most Protestant denominations. As prolific Catholic theologian Aidan Nichols points out in the Prface of his recent overview of the Old Testament, Lovely Like Jerusalem (Ignatius), Catholics often have problems getting a sense of... Read more
Some reviewers of Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side have complained about the “paternalism” of the Tuohy family who brought Michael Oher into their orbit. Well, tu quoque . Is it just possible that some lost kids, even lost black kids, might actually need a pater ? Read more
Mary Douglas has died. She began her career as a cultural anthropologist, writing seminal works on purity, symbols, food, social organization, and other topics. She collaborated with Aaron Wildavsky on a book on risk. But perhaps her greatest contribution has been to theology and biblical studies. Her work exploring the logic of food and purity laws in Leviticus became a touchstone of OT scholarship, and she ended her life with several anthropologically-oriented commentaries on Leviticus and Numbers. The London Times... Read more
According to Tina Cassidy’s recent Birth: A History , birth has been (in the words of the TLS reviewer) a “ripe terrain for fads” and “oftne a vigilante affair.” Not all the fads have been New Ageish; some have been scientific. The reviewer summarizes: “after the move from midwives to doctors, mortality rates initially shot up, as did rates of postpartum debility. Hospital births starting in the eighteenth century were a huge liability; impatient obstetricians zealously used their instruments to... Read more
Christians find an anchor for life in historical events, centrally in the cross and resurrection of Jesus. We are not the only ones. For some, the Holocaust becomes the key to understanding all subsequent history. For others, the Spanish Civil War. For others, the founding of the US, or the French Revolution. Has it always been this way? Or is it possible that after the cross and resurrection, realized eschatology has become unavoidable? Perhaps since Jesus we can’t not believe... Read more
Reader Angie Brennan writes: Regarding “Prayer and the Lusty Body” . . . I’m not sure I agree with Tyndale that true prayer necessarily gives comfort to the soul—and it certainly isn’t always easy on the body. Prayers offered in the midst of great anguish or despair can be quite exhausting (such as in Psalm 88) with weeping, groaning, and falling prostrate before the Lord—all things that can easily vex the eyes & throat and weary the body. Of course,... Read more
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