Jesus gives His Spirit to His Bride, and the Bride is so filled with the Spirit that she and the Spirit speak with a single voice, which is the voice of the Word whose Spirit it is. Filled with the Spirit, the Bride longs for the Lord’s coming: The Spirit and Bride say “Come.” So, you’d like your bride to speak in sync, to harmonize your melodies? So you’d like your bride to be a fugal variation on your themes?... Read more
Michael Hanby (No God, No Science? 31) makes the arresting claim that “the equation of abstraction with the movement from particular to general” is “not ontologically innocent.” It instead “reflects the deep-seated mechanistic assumption that the ‘parts’ of reality are ontologically prior to the whole of it, with the latter being merely the aggregation of the former and the result of their history of interaction.” This is not how the world is: “in the actual world, the existence of each... Read more
Speech act theory is something of a fad in evangelical theology. Like all theoretical paradigms, it has its strengths. It is most useful, perhaps, in thinking about preaching and ritual, and also in thinking through (as Nicholas Wolterstorff has done) what it means to say that the Bible is God’s word. Some uses are disquieting, though. John Walton and Brent Sandy use speech act theory in their book, The Lost World of Scripture, to discover the precise location of inerrancy and... Read more
Robert Ellis is not a Marxist. But he finds “food for thought” in some Marxist critiques of the sport-industrial-imperial complex (Games People Play, 44-5). Sports reflects society, he observes, and some have pointed out the way American football is a mirror of the “clock-factory workforce.” Marxist’s push the point further: He cites Peter Donnelly’s analysis: “Sport socialised individuals into work discipline, hyper-competitiveness and assertive individualism. In other words sport not only reflected capitalist society, but also helped to reproduce it,... Read more
Hee Youl Lee’s A Dynamic Reading of the Holy Spirit in Revelation is a complicated monograph on the role of the Spirit in Revelation. Lee argues that the book is organized by a sixfold plot (introduction, setting, complication, resolution, evaluation, moral)_ that functions at four levels (heaven, earth, abyss, lake of fire). The plot is “the way of witness to the word of prophecy for the conversion of the nations, opposed by the evil powers and engendered by Jesus and his... Read more
“Grain and new wine” is an automatic combination throughout the Hebrew Bible (cf. e.g., Genesis 27:28, 37; Numbers 12:27; Deuteronomy 7:13; 2 Kings 18:32; 2 Chronicles 31:5; 32:28; Isaiah 62:8; Hosea 2:8). Grain (dagan) is almost never used without “wine,” and when it happens you know something is wrong. As in Nehemiah 5, when some Jews become so poor that they have to sell their children into slavery to get “grain.” Nehemiah castigates the predatory Jews who are enslaving brothers.... Read more
The Spurs are back in the finals against the formidable Heat, and of course Spurs fans everywhere are jittery (there are at least 3 outside San Antonio, perhaps more). It’s a good time to steel oneself against the possibility of tragedy and turn philosophical about sports. Or, to be philosophical, I should say, “sport.” Robert Ellis’s The Games People Play is a wonderful playing field of a book in which to kick about philosophically. Ellis is principal at Regent’s Park College,... Read more
In the current issue of Pro Ecclesia (Spring 2014) Todd Billings offers what he describes as a “Catholic-Reformed” alternative to Moral Therapeutic Deism and to contemporary “correlationist” approaches to contemporary theology. He finds “correlationist” instincts operating not only in latter-day Tillichian efforts to catch the wave of postmodernity, but also in “archaeological” attempts to retrieve a lost gospel behind the encrustrations of tradition (he cites NT Wright). A Catholic-Reformed theology holds that “in the communal proclamation of Scripture through word... Read more
J. Denny Weaver (Nonviolent Atonement, 7) states a common view among contemporary Mennonites when he argues that traditional atonement theories only work “if one is willing to defend the compatibility of violence and retribution with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” He argues for continuity between the character of God, atonement theology, and Christian ethics: All must be non-violent. A non-violent ethics rests on trust in a non-violent God. As Perry Yoder points out in his essay in Struggles for Shalom, this... Read more
Paul claims that he was shown mercy so that “Jesus might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example (hupotyposis) for those who would believe in Him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16). Paul is “typical,” a pattern or impress, for others who find mercy. How exactly? The earlier verses tell us: He was a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor against Jesus and His church (1:13). He acted ignorantly in unbelief, but the favor of Jesus was more... Read more
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