When you enter the land, Yahweh says, you will offer ascension offers with tributes of grain and with wine. The wine is the new thing, the addition to Yahweh’s diet as Israel enters the land. Yahweh is the model Nazirite, refraining from wine and strong drink until He has driven out the Canaanites and brought His people into the land. Read more
The bride of the Song addresses Solomon as “my beloved” ( dodi ) some 25 times. The phrasing is unusual; elsewhere, dod means not “beloved” but “uncle.” In the LXX, the word is translated as adelphidos , used only in the Son. While the terminology is different, “my beloved” is used in the NT. It is the Father’s address of love to His Son (Matthew 3:17; ho agapatos huios ), but it is also Paul’s common form of address to... Read more
On second viewing, the Pixar movie Up , appealing enough in its first viewing, definitely got better. The things that annoyed me, didn’t; what I thought were flaws, weren’t. Such as: The fast-paced first ten minutes were my favorite part of the movie the first time around; probably still. But on first viewing, I found myself disappointed that I didn’t get to spend more time with Ellie. An energetic pushy tomboy, she was far more appealing than the “small mailman”... Read more
Pasnau again, on Thomas. According to Thomas, human being ceases to exist at death, comes back into existence with the resurrection: “Aquinas believes that when I die, I go out of existence . . . . the soul’s separation causes death, and death puts an end to my existence. We might think of this as a frankly metaphysical account of death. Death is not mere biological change, but a substantial change. I – the person, the human being – go... Read more
Soul and body make, for Thomas, as single unified substance. But the demonstration of this point depends on whether one looks at the issue from the perpective of the parts (soul/body, or body parts) or the whole. As Robert Pasnau ( Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa Theologiae, 1a 75-89 ) points out, from the perspective of the whole the body is separable from the person: “We can lose legs and arms, organs and tissue without... Read more
Jenson notes that Barth was not opposed to philosophy, but “refused to depend on the official philosophers because what they offered to do for him he thought he should do for himself, in conversation with them when that seemed likely to help.” This leads Jenson to the striking claim that the Church Dogmatics “can be read as the first truly major system of Western metaphysics since the collapse Hegelianism.” Read more
Isaiah 58:6-7: Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh? Today we are taking up a special offering for the people of Haiti. As... Read more
Peter’s readers had a lot to fear, but Peter tells them not to fear. More precisely, as Pastor Sumpter will point out in his sermon, Peter tells his readers not to “fear their fear,” not to fear as their opponents fear. In the passage that Peter quotes, Isaiah warns Israel not to get caught up in the frenzy of anxiety envelops them. The Bible talks about conspiracies. Absalom plots against David, Zimri against Elah, Jehoiada against Atahalia. But Isaiah warns... Read more
“I am black but lovely,” the bride of the Song insists to the daughters of Jerusalem. That judgment runs against the aesthetics of the time, according to which white, untarnished skin was a sign of beauty, as well as a sign of class distinction. She is black because she was burned by the sun while working in the vineyard at the command of her brothers (1:6). Jenson rightly finds an allegory of exodus here. Yahweh punished Israel’s unfaithfulness in guarding... Read more
Deuteronomy 4:20 uses an arresting image to describe the exodus: “Yahweh has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be a people for His own possession.” The context is crucial. Yahweh is warning about making graven images (vv. 16-18, 23) and about turning to heavenly bodies in worship (v. 19). ”Don’t forge idols in your furnaces,” Yahweh says, but instead remember that I forged you in the factory of Egypt. It’s not that there... Read more
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