One premise of the above analysis is that Islam, which conquered some of the most vibrant areas of early Christianity, was and is a judgment of God, and therefore that Christians must recognize that Islam?s rise and continuing success results from the failures of the church. Laurence E. Browne concluded that the ?eclipse of Christianity in Asia?Ewas due to the ?feebleness?Eof the church?s faith and witness. It will not do, he points out, to say that Christianity failed to make... Read more
In this section, I explore two biblical perspectives that throw light on the rise and persistence of Islam. First, Scripture indicates that the Lord judged Israel by raising up parodic versions of Israel to plague Israel. When Yahweh wanted to call Israel to repentance, He held up a pseudo-Israel as a mirror, and by examining herself in the mirror, Israel was supposed to see her blemishes and learn how to go about amending herself. A key example comes in 1... Read more
I wrote the following a few years ago, and have not been able to farm it out anywhere. Other parts to follow in subsequent posts to this site. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was (Jas. 1:23-24). Deep in the... Read more
INTRODUCTION Last week, we focused attention on the role of the Spirit in the incarnation, and what the incarnation told us about the relationships among the Father, Son, and Spirit. This week, we will focus attention on the Son or Word of the Father, who was sent into the world to speak the Father to us, and to reveal to us the inner life of God. THE TEXT ?In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,... Read more
Much has been made by Jehovah’s Witnesses and other groups of the absence of the article in John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was A God,” is the preferred translation of such cults. There are good grammatical reasons to reject this translation and interpretation, but Arthur Wainwright ( The Trinity in the New Testament , currently in print from Wipf & Stock) provides some additional contextual reasons. He points... Read more
Much has been made by Jehovah’s Witnesses and other groups of the absence of the article in John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was A God,” is the preferred translation of such cults. There are good grammatical reasons to reject this translation and interpretation, but Arthur Wainwright ( The Trinity in the New Testament , currently in print from Wipf & Stock) provides some additional contextual reasons. He points... Read more
Walter Bruggemann ( An Introduction to the Old Testament , p. 206f) offers this intriguing discussion of Ezekiel 18. He notes that this has usually been taken as a universal statement about individual human responsibility, but that interpretation detaches the passage from its context. He suggests a contextually sensitive interpretation: “When taken locally and pastorally, the text has a very different meaning. The body of the text is organized into three generations: The first generation of a righteous man (vv.... Read more
Donald Gowan’s The Theology of the Prophetic Books is one of the best books on the prophets around. He argues that the message of the prophets, rooted in warnings like Deuteronomy 5:25-31 and 8:19-20, is that Israel will die for her sins. It’s not just that her circumstances are going to get worse – she’s actually facing death. The prophetic hope is a hope for restoration from death, for resurrection. The death and resurrection of Israel is the theme of... Read more
The test: Who wrote the following comments on the birth of Jesus? “He lies in the manger. Notice here that nothing but Christ is to be preached throughout the whole world. What is the manger but the congregations of Christians in the churches to hear the preaching? We are the beasts before this manger; and Christ is laid before us upon whom we are to feed our souls. Whosoever goes to hear the preaching, goes to this manger; but it... Read more
Cristina Nehring’s Atlantic review of Stephen Greenblatt’s Shakespeare biography, Will in the World , is sharply critical of Greenblatt’s New Historicism: “The ‘commitment’ of New Historicists is to ‘particularity’ – or, one might say, to peculiarity. ‘Trans-historical’ dilemmas like ‘to be or not to be,’ to love or not to love, leave them cold. They pride themselves on their ability to look at literature and discover the forgotten customs, cultural quirks, and social idiosyncracies behind it . . . .... Read more
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