Words on the Word
Jesus
Gary Burge’s Jesus and the Jewish Festivals, reviewed
In college I thought my friend Chad was really cool (he was) for climbing on top of college buildings late at night and shouting the Shema at the top of his lungs… until he was corralled by Public Safety. Sh’ma Yisrael: Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad! I learned my first Hebrew in Gary Burge’s Christian Thought class my … Continue reading
Risen, he pulls the dead out of their graves
I’ve been admiring the above piece all week in anticipation of Easter. (Click to enlarge) It’s from Chora Church in Istanbul. The Greek is ἡ ἀνάστασις, in all capital letters=the resurrection. The letters just above Jesus are the Greek abbreviation for Jesus Christ. Two blogs I read posted a similar icon this morning. I love how … Continue reading
Holy Saturday? More like “Awful Saturday”
All day I’ve been trying to meditate on what Jesus’ disciples must have been feeling on the day between Good Friday and Easter. Wait–before you go further, if you don’t think it’s too cheesy, listen to this while you read the rest of the post: Saturday. Many Western Christians know how to observe Good Friday … Continue reading
“I need the Resurrection because…”
Via Patheos, a beautiful Easter reflection from pastor and blogger Kara Root: I need the Resurrection because my sister is sick and can’t afford insurance, because I’ve told a weeping Haitian mom, “No, I can’t take your son home with me.” because I’ve been rushed off a Jerusalem street so a robot could blow up … Continue reading
Need of Jesus (a Puritan prayer)
Here is a prayer from The Valley of Vision, titled “Need of Jesus.” (More on this collection of Puritan prayers is here.) Lord Jesus, I am blind, be thou my light, ignorant, be thou my wisdom, self-willed, be thou my mind. Open my ear to grasp quickly thy Spirit’s voice, and delightfully run after his beckoning hand; Melt … Continue reading
Jesus Makes a Pun in the Synagogue
Jesus makes a pun in Luke 4. I’m not the first one to notice this, but it stood out to me as I read my way through Luke 4:14-21 this past week. I’m preaching on the passage at my church tomorrow. Jesus enters the synagogue at his hometown of Nazareth in Galilee and opens the Isaiah scroll … Continue reading
Keep ‘em coming back with the December Biblical Studies Carnival
Charles Spurgeon is reported to have said, “If you have to give a carnival to get people to come to church, then you will have to keep giving carnivals to keep them coming back.” And so we who blog in the fields of academic biblical studies and theology keep giving carnivals. So let Words on … Continue reading
Come on, ring them bells!
Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! I’m grateful for friends and family as Advent winds down and as we come to Christmas. I’m especially grateful for the amazing act of Incarnation through which Jesus came to us. Come on, ring them bells!
frameworks (How to Navigate the New Testament): a review
Why the book frameworks? Author Eric Larson says, frameworks, quite simply, is a book about Bible navigation and context, material that’s designed to build your confidence in your ability to negotiate the text and understand it. Think of it as a guidebook, a Bible companion, written for anyone who would like to have a personal biblical … Continue reading
A wife for Jesus?
Did Jesus have a wife? Does it matter? In the last two days I’ve seen about 50 Facebook status updates from friends and groups I follow, each with their own take on the “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife” papyrus that Harvard Professor Karen L. King recently announced. (Nerdy grammatical excursus: King has titled the papyrus with Jesus’s, … Continue reading
