Sermon Outline for Third Sunday in Advent: God With Us INTRODUCTION When John describes the incarnation, he uses an image drawn from the Pentateuch, saying that the “Word became flesh and ‘pitched His tent’ among us” (John 1:14). The phrase “pitch his tent” can also be translated as “tabernacled,” and refers to the sanctuary that Israel built when they came from Egypt. Jesus is the fulfillment of this sanctuary, the “Holy Place” where God dwells. THE TEXT “Then the Lord... Read more
Some interesting things going on in Paul’s quotation from Psalm 51 in Romans 3:4: 1) The surface significance is pretty clear. Earlier in the chapter, Paul has raised the question about how the PISTIS of God can be manifest if “some” in Israel have been APISTIA, so unfaithful to their calling that they are arousing blasphemy rather than praise from the nations (2:24). When God brings Israel under judgment for her APISTIA, how then can His faithfulness to His covenant... Read more
Some speculations on death in the original creation, inspired by Jim Jordan’s lecture on Daniel 4 and by discussion with a colleague at NSA. As usual, anytime I write about the Trinity, Jeff Meyers is also lurking in the background. This is not all set in stone, only musings and ponderings. Death-resurrection patterns are so written into the fabric of creation, and seem to be part of the original creation (darkness-light-darkness, the day dying every evening). And, I think this... Read more
Warren Gage of Knox Seminary in Ft Lauderdale is a treasure. In a very rich and as-yet unpublished paper on the typology of Samson, Gage points out a number of very striking typologies. He suggests, for instance, that Absalom is a Christ figure, dying on a tree, being struck in the side by an enemy soldier (Joab), and being buried under a large stone. (To extend the typology, Absalom’s death brings an end to David’s exile; the death of a... Read more
The editors of The New Republic got it right, it IS the correction of the year, issued by the Cleveland Plain Dealer on November 18: “Because of an editing error, a story on the front page yesterday misattributed a quote from the speaker on an audiotape purportedly of Saddam Hussein as coming from Senate Minority Leader Tom Daeschle of South Dakota. It was the speaker on the tape, not Daeschle, who said, ‘The evil ones now find themselves in crisis,... Read more
Early in his Tragic Sense of Life , Unamuno captures the profound connection between autonomy and tragic character in a passage of hyperventilating passion: “The visible universe, the universe that is created by the instinct of self-preservation, becomes all to narrow for me. It is like a cramped cell, against the bars of which my soul beats its wings in vain. Its lack of air stifles me. More, more, and always more! I want to be myself, and yet without... Read more
There’s something chiastic going on in 3:19-31 (or maybe 2:25-3:30). A. by works of law no flesh shall be justified, 19-20 B. Apart from law, righteousness of God is revealed, 21 C. righteousness through faith in Jesus—> for all have sinned, 22-23 D. being justified as a gift through Jesus the propitiation, 24-25a C’. to demonstrate his righteousness (having passed over sin), 25 B’. demonstration righteousness at the present time, right through faith 26-27 A’. Because man is justified by... Read more
A touch of Spenserian humor: Spenser has a witch create a false Florimell (Book 3) for her slothful and unattractive son, who is smitten with the beauty of the real Florimell. The witch uses materials from Petrarchan love sonnets to construct the lady ?Eactual lamps for eyes, actual golden wire for hair, and so on. When she’s finished, the False Florimell is just what she was made to be ?Ea Petrarchan lady, and that means she’s coy, distant, cruel toward... Read more
Spenser might provide a Milbankian response to Milbank’s endorsement of homosexual sex and “threesomes.” In Book 3 of The Faerie Queene , Spenser’s heroine is Britomart, the lady knight who represents a militant chastity directed toward marital and sexual consummation rather than a fearful virginity that simply avoids sex. Britomart is descended from a Trojan, Brutus, the legendary founder of the British people. In one of her battles, she unseats Paridell, who is also of Trojan descent. Paridell is from... Read more
William Allan Oram in a book on Spenser writes that “one of the fruitful false etymologies of the Renaissance was the derivation of HERO from EROS: by this understanding, love does not hinder noble deeds but spurs them on.” Read more
Leithart
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