Grace in the Hands of Jesus

  

"Grace in the hands of Jesus is difficult to accept. It is no respecter of conventional social boundaries. His stories are his meals and his healings betray a decided preference for the socially marginal, for the religiously unrespectable. Indeed, Luke records Jesus' own admission that, in the eyes of his critics, he is nothing other than a 'friend of tax collectors and sinners.' In a word, in the message and public ministry of Jesus grace is offensive, even scandalous."

John T. Carroll and James R. Carroll, Preaching the Hard Sayings of Jesus (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996),6.
   

Wine in Ancient Israel

  
See this Jerusalem Post article.
 

The Apostolic Decree in Acts 15

  
James Gray has a brief but solid post here on the Apostolic Decree in Acts 15. James has a nice comment in a footnote on my 2004 Bibliotheca Sacra article. I am flattered to be included among the likes of Ben Witherington and Darrell Bock.
 

Biblical Humor in The New Yorker Magazine

  
Some might find this article on "Biblical Humor in The New Yorker: A Brief History" interesting.
 

Exodus 32-34: Golden Calf and Covenant Renewal

  
Victor Hamilton has an encouraging word in his Exodus commentary on the purpose behind the covenant renewal with Israel after the golden calf incident. 

“Not only will the Lord continue with Israel, but he also will renew and reaffirm his covenant with Israel. This is the principal thrust of chap. 34. The reason God will do so is not because the people have repented of their sin. There is not evidence of any contrition on their part. They regret the Lord’s threatened absence, but not their idolatry (33:4). Nor are Moses’s prayers the determining issue, although they surely play a critical role in God’s sorting out his options. The key factor is this: what kind of God is the Lord? While not oblivious to sin and its fallout (34:7b), he is “compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, faithful, . . . loving, . . . forgiving” (34:6-7a AT)."

Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker), 2011), 528.
   

New Images from Khirbet Qeiyafa Excavations

  
Some might enjoy these new images from the Khirbet Qeiyafa excavations.
 

Social-Scientific Interpretation

  
Stephen Barton in arguing for the place of social-scientific perspectives in New Testament studies states,

"Once it is recognized that NT interpretation is a necessarily historical enterprise (whatever else it may be), then it is a short step to recognizing that other disciplines from the human sciences have a part to play as well, not least the social sciences. Conventionally, these include sociology, social (or cultural) anthropology, and psychology. These disciplines have the potential for throwing new light on the world behind the text (the world of the author), the world within the text (the narrated world of characters, intentions, and events), and the world in front of the text (the world of the reader).

"The main presupposition that underpins the use of the social sciences in NT interpretation is that the text of the NT is a product, not just of historical conditioning, but of social and cultural conditioning as well. To the extent that cultural factors and social forces played a part in the lives of the individuals and groups that produced the NT or to which the NT refers, sociological analysis is legitimate and necessary. If it is possible to write a social history of early Christianity using the NT as a prime source, is it not possible to engage in social-scientific analysis as well?"

Stephen C. Barton, "Historical Criticism and Social-Scientific Perspectives in New Testament Study," in Hearing the New Testament: Strategies for Interpretation, 2nd ed., ed. Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 40-41.
    

Lanier Theological Library

  
The Lanier Theological Library sounds like a wonderful (see this article). I will need to check it out next time I am in Houston.
 

Symposium on Worship and the Psalms

  
Those who are in or around the Grand Rapids area on January 26-28 might be interested on this Symposium on Worship focusing on the Psalms. Speakers include Walter Brueggemann and N. T. Wright. Sounds interesting.
  

Should Churches Allow or Encourage Their Pastors to Teach Outside of Church?

  
See this interesting article.
  

The Difference between Authority and Authoritarian

“When the combination is right, we preach with authority, which is different from being an authoritarian. Preaching with authority means you’ve done your homework. You know your people’s struggles and hurts. But you also know the Bible and theology. You can explain the Bible clearly. Preachers aren’t being authoritarian when they point people to the Bible. When Billy Graham explains. ‘The Bible says …’ he’s relying not on his own authority but on another – God’s Word – and he shows how that authority makes sense. We help our credibility when we practice biblical preaching.”

Haddon W. Robinson, Making a Difference , ed. Scott W. Gibson (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 35. 

Hamilton on the Greatest Commmandments

 
I have enjoyed dabbling in Victor Hamilton’s new Exodus commentary. In introducing his comments on the Ten Commandments, Hamilton discusses Jesus’ answer to the question of which commandment is the greatest (Matt 22:36; Mark 12:28) by noting that,

“Jesus answers his critic not by quoting any of the Ten Words, but rather first by quoting Deut. 6:5, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’ (Matt. 22:37). Then Jesus proceeds to overanswer the query by offering the answer to an unsolicited question: “And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39; Lev. 19:18).”

Hamilton then goes on to note:
 

Jesus appears to be doing three things when he answers the question the way he does. First, he changes laws that are primarily prohibitive into ones that are performative, from ‘you shall not’ to ‘you shall.’ Second, in the two parts of his answer, he is condensing the first four commandments (godward, vertical commandments) into one commandment, and contracting the remaining humanward, horizontal six commandments into one commandment. To love God that passionately rules out other gods and rules out the desecration of God’s name and day. To love one’s fellow neighbor unconditionally rules out disrespect, stealing, any violence against another, bearing false witness, or coveting. Third, Jesus is making, the point that at the heart of obedience to God is love. One obeys not out of fear, but out of love. In so speaking, he anticipates Paul’s ‘love is the fulfillment of the law’ (Rom. 13:10).”

Victor P. Hamilton, Exodus: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker), 2011), 321.

  

2012 Expository Preaching Workshop

   

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is hosting an expository Preaching Workshop on March 5-6, 2012. This Expository Preaching Workshop will aid you in clearly communicating the message of Scripture to your congregation while keeping them engaged at every turn. The workshop is $25 for students and $50 for non-students through February 20, 2012. After February 20, registration fees increase to $50 for students and $75 for non-students. Study materials and one meal are included. This year's speakers include Bryan Chapell, Jerry Vines, Paige Patterson, and David Allen.

Go here to get more information and registration.
 

Dunn on Church Size

  

"The basic point which emerges is that the earliest house churches, in most cases, must have been fairly small, a dozen or twenty people in all. And even when ‘the whole church’ in a city or section of a city could meet as church in one place, we may very well be talking of only forty or fifty people, and not necessarily gathered in a single room. The dynamics of church life, of the shared life of believers in most cities, must have been dependent on and to some extent determined by the physical space in which they were able to function as church. We, of course, are accustomed to visualizing huge church buildings and congregations which can be numbered in the hundreds or even thousands. So it is important for us to remember that the typical church of the first century or more of Christian history was the gathering of small cell comprising twenty or so, and less regularly up to about fifty. This is important, since we are now well aware that the social dynamics of small groups is very different from that of large groups. And the accompanying theology needs to take such factors more into account than is usually the case. In many cases our concern should be not that our churches are too small but that they are too large!"
   

James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 171.

  

Preaching through Joshua

   
See Randal Pelton's article on preaching through Joshua from the Jan-Feb 2012 issue of Preaching magazine.
  

Mounce on Acts 2:11

  
See Bill Mounce's post here on understanding and translating Acts 2:11. This is a tough passage and yet an important piece of the discussion of tongues in the New Testament. 
  

Free James Commentary E-Book

  

Baker Academic is offering their second free e-book. This week's offering is the section on James from Robert Gundry's larger verse-by-verse Commentary on the New Testament. You can access this free download for today only at Amazon, Christian Book Distributors, and Barnes & Noble.

    

Christology and Soteriology in Hebrews

  

"The Christology and soteriology of Hebrews can be summarized in this way. Jesus is the Son of God, a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. As the Son of God, he is greater than the angels. But in order to rescue humanity from the fear of death and deal effectively with sin, it was necessary for the Son to share in the flesh and blood of humans so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest. According to Heb 7:21, God appointed him high priest by an oath: "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest forever.'" As a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, Jesus enjoys a superior priesthood that he exercised in a unique way through his death. By dying, he entered the holy of holies, the heavenly sanctuary, where he offered his blood—his very life—for the sins of his brothers and sisters once and for all. In Hebrews, then, Christology and soteriology are intimately related in the person of Jesus, who is both priest and victim."

Frank J. Matera, "The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews," in Reading the Epistle to the Hebrews: A Resource for Students, ed. Eric F. Mason and Kevin B. McCruden (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 198

Unchurched or Unsaved

  
Trevin Wax has some interesting thoughts on what the use of unchurched or unsaved might say about us here.
   

Are You Farther Along?

  
I am all for transparency and humility, but one who stands before God to speak must also be one who is farther along in the journey than most he is attempting to lead. As Haddon Robinson humorously points out,

"Preachers of course, have to be more than 'fellow strugglers.' No one is helped by 'You're a loser; I'm a loser; let's keep losing together.'" 

Haddon W. Robinson, Making a Difference, ed. Scott W. Gibson (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 34.