Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Part 1 We do not understand the role of women in ministry because we do not understand the role of men in ministry. We do not understand the role of men in ministry because we do not understand the church. We do not understand the church because the consumer culture…
1. One structure The Creation account (G1:1-2:4) conspicuously conveys meaning using the literary shape of the text. The narrative is told with formulaic patterns, repetitions, and parallelism. The Garden account is different. It is viewed as a separate text, with its own author, employing its own structure. This second account’s…
I was reading James Jordan’s Creation in Six Days while also preparing for Trinity Sunday in which the gospel reading is John 3:1-15. As providence would have it Jordan dropped an easter egg for me along the lines of baptism. In chapter 5 he points out, “ On the second…
It's true. There is no verse in the New Testament that commands or records an infant baptism. This poses a problem for some Christians. Those who only look for explicit commands, or those whose theology is limited to the New Testament, will conclude that infant baptism is not biblical and…
1. Goal This paper’s goal is to identify and describe a literary strategy employed by scripture, namely using two episodes that cover similar territory or themes using details drawn from opposite ends of a number of spectrums. Once described the reader may recognize numerous other instances of this strategy in…
Numbers 14 records the tragic story of Israel’s decision to rebel against Yahweh and Moses. Twelve spies had been sent into the land to bring back a report to Israel. All twelve spies agreed: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey”…
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More from Green’s commentary: Luke is amazing. In 7:1-10, Jews come to Jesus interceding for the centurion. They insist that the centurion is worthy of attention because he has done good to the nation of Israel: “He loves our nation, and it was he who built our synagogue” (v. 5).…
Building from Joel Green’s comments on Luke 7:1-10, I suggest a combination of chiastic and parallel structure in the passage: A. Centurion’s slave is ill, v 2 B. Centurion sends delegation of Jews, v 3 C. Jews convince Jesus the centurion is “worthy,” vv 4-5 D. Jesus responds by going…
Bailey’s discussion (previous post) also helped me to answer questions about the sexual imagery of Luke 7. Not only do we have references to “feet” (euphemistic for sexual organs), but the woman is said to “touch” him, which often has sexual connotations as well. Plus, the woman looses her hair…
There is a very intriguing analysis of Luke 7:36-50 in Kenneth Bailey’s Through Peasant Eyes . He points out that Simon the Pharisee must have invited Jesus to his house with the deliberate intent of insulting him, testing him. Simon left out all the basic rites of hospitality, which he…
It was one of those “blinding flashes of the obvious” that Jim Jordan often talks about (and apparently, experiences). I was asked the other day if the effort to formulate a thorough-going Trinitarian theology was an exercise of systematics, and if so how this fit with my bias (and that…
After reading through a stack of papers on Aeschylus’s Oresteian trilogy, a few thoughts have occurred to me, mainly having to do with my unbegun and doubtless forever unfinished work on the atonement, sacrifice, and so on. Essentially, these thoughts all boil down to one question: What would Aeschylus have…
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