Joseph is often described as a snotty little upstart, a gossip and tattletale who brings an evil report about his brothers back to his father. I think that misses the whole tone of the story. Joseph is the “foreman” of his brothers (at the age of 17!), a younger son elevated above his brothers. He is, as one of my students put it, “chief shepherd.” If Joseph is a tattletale, we also miss just how crude and violent his brothers... Read more
I was introduced to the work of Jim Jordan many years ago with his wonderful book “Through New Eyes.” In it, Jordan suggests there is “a real need for books that dig into the Bible and set out the Bible’s own worldview, explaining the Bible’s own language. The Biblical worldview is not given to us in the discursive and analytical language of philosophy and science, but in the rich and compact language of symbolism and art. It is pictured in... Read more
Some observations after grading a pile of student papers on the robe motif in the Joseph narratives. 1) Joseph begins the story as a recipient of a robe from his father ; he ends the story bestowing robes on his brothers, especially Benjamin. He has become “father” to his brothers (as he is father to Pharaoh), and following his father’s lead, and the pattern of the early history of humanity, he bestows extra blessing on the youngest son. As one... Read more
INTRODUCTION Yahweh promises to do a new thing for Judah (Isaiah 42:9; 43:19; 48:6). He brings Israel from Babylon, and reorganizes the geopolitical landscape to make a new relation of Israel and the nations. THE TEXT “Thus says the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held— to subdue nations before him and loose the armor of kings, to open before him the double doors, so that the gates will not be shut . . .... Read more
From Ephesians 5, John Paul II ( Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body ) draws the conclusion that marriage provides a model for the “sacrament of redemption,” the historical and visible revelation of the mystery that has been hidden from the foundations of the world. All the sacraments of the church, he claims, derive their significance from Christ’s spousal self-gift to the church. Paul refers to two specific sacraments in the passage, and they happen... Read more
Albert Borgmann ( Crossing the Postmodern Divide ) writes, somewhat surprisingly, of “postmodernism realism” as an alternative to modernism and hypermodernism. It is only surprising, he argues, because we misconstrue the character of modernism’s toxic triple mix of Bacon, Descartes, and Locke, of domination, method, and individualism. Not postmodernism but modernism was the assault on reality, and the postmodern critique was an effort to recover reality that had been laid waste by modernism. “What has really fallen victim to the... Read more
In his Rhythm of Gods Grace , Arthur Paul Boers (a Mennonite theologian!) gives a brief history of daily prayer. In the fourth century, he notes, “it was normal for most churches to have morning and evening prayer every day. Many participated. Christian leaders expected regular attendance. Ambrose of Milan . . . wanted Christians to come at least each morning” (p. 43). As the monks became more influential in cathedral liturgies, “corporate public worship that was once available to... Read more
Bonhoeffer ( Ethics ) challenges what he thinks of as the pseudo-Lutheran view of vocation. Vocation is not merely a demand to stay within the already-settled limits of a job, an office, a set of procedures. It is a call from Jesus to follow Jesus. “This call does indeed summon him to earthly duties,” Bonhoeffer admits, “but that is never the whole of the call, for it lies always beyond these duties, before them and behind them. The calling, in... Read more
Bonhoeffer ( Ethics ) raises the question, What is real? His answer is the Sunday School answer: Jesus. If this is true, then Christian ethics faces no tragic dilemmas. We are not confronted with pressure to tailor our witness or action in the name of Jesus to some given reality that is other than Jesus. Again, he takes aim at a Niebuhrian theme: (more…) Read more
One should not be surprised, given Peter Leithart’s track record, that something as imaginative as the Trinity Institute for Biblical, Liturgical , and Cultural Studies is to be formed in Birmingham, AL. But it is nonetheless an extraordinary event that should be celebrated not only among the Reformed, but all Christians should see this as a welcomed development for the renewal of the ministry and the church. The refusal to separate biblical teaching from its proper home in liturgy is... Read more
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