Home » Posts tagged Bible (Page 2)

Lordy, Lordy, Look What’s Forty

Maybe it’s just me, but a lot of uber-Evangelicals seem kind of nervous. Maybe its from watching too many horror movies, but I tend to doubt it. Now, I am the last person to disparage church folk for being guilty of things that are just as common to your...
Continue reading

Mark 1:1 Makes No Sentence at All

Look at Mark 1:1… look reeeeeaaaaal close and careful. It reads in the ESV, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Seems simple enough. A literalist rendering of the Greek is, “Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ son of God. The three of words aren’t actually...
Continue reading

Induction… not just for Science Nerds Anymore

When I speak of “Doing Biblical Theology” I intend the use of an arsenal of tools for ascertaining the intended theological message of a biblical unit of literature. I just wanted to make that clear in case you thought I was attempting to market an improved version of...
Continue reading

Saul Loses the Girl and Gains a Doomed Throne

In recent posts, I’ve been considering biblical variations on the type-scene, “Foreigner at the Well.”[1] Perhaps you are tired of reading about it… you have been reading about it haven’t you?  I’m sorry; is my insecurity showing? Let’s try this again with a little more confidence. Thou shalt...
Continue reading

I’ll Have One “Foreigner at the Well” with a Twist

In my recent post, “Wells: The Singles’ Bars of the Ancient Near East,”—I just call ‘em like I see ‘em Folks! Don’t judge me—I discussed the beauty of the ancient type-scene, “Foreigner at the Well.” We discussed how every culture has popular literary scenarios drawn from elements of...
Continue reading

Wells: The Singles’ Bars of the Ancient Near East

One of my great-uncles, a true good-ol’boy from west Texas, once said to my great-grandmother, “Mamma, it’s hard to find a good woman like you out there.” She replied, “There are plenty of good women like me out there. They  just don’t hang out in the places you...
Continue reading

Hallelujah: Call “of” Praise or Call “to” Praise

After discussing, in my recent blog post, “Hallelujah is a Sentence,” that the biblical “term” Hallelujah has grammar and that we should both be aware of that grammar and use the phrase accordingly in our worship songs, I received two types of criticism. Let’s call them sniveling and...
Continue reading

What I Mean by Biblical Theology

How hard could it possibly be to find agreement on the meaning of a phrase as simple as biblical theology? In truth… harder than I’d like. Biblical theology is not, after all, merely theological ideas that are “biblical,” and the history of the phrase biblical theology is, unfortunately,...
Continue reading

Hallelujah is a Sentence

At the risk of sounding like a petulant child… well, a petulant child that complains about the frequent misuse of ancient Hebrew in weekly church services…. Which now that I think about it isn’t really childish at all…. Okay, so… at the risk of sounding like a scholarly...
Continue reading

Bible Reading is Cross-cultural Communication

Communication at its most basic is the use of symbols to affect the understanding of another. The symbols at a communicator’s disposal are both verbal and non-verbal. Verbal tools are spoken & heard symbols that represent ideas. Non-verbal tools are unspoken symbols that represent ideas. Phonology—uses words (individual...
Continue reading

5 Ways to Avoid Miscommunication

Let’s be honest, when you understand what communication is at its roots, you’ll realize that you cannot avoid miscommunication… not altogether. It takes two to tango (That’s what my betters say, anyway… personally, I’m more of a Bugs Bunny Square Dance sort of fella’) and communication requires both...
Continue reading

Passion and Awe in Psalm 8

When reading biblical poetry, one must learn to connect with the poem on more than one level. While it is important to carefully define the Hebrew words being employed in any passage, and to track a poem’s use of parallelism and word pairs, and to follow the overall...
Continue reading