In this series I am unpacking seven paths of investigation that a person should take in his or her attempt to understand a New Testament author’s USE of an Old Testament passage. Many imagine that texts like Matthew 2:15—in which an historical comment in Hosea 11:1 is used...
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March 31, 2017 Andrew Sargent
New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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The article, “I Lost My Purity (And I Haven’t Had Sex)”[1] is well written, provocative, cleverly titled, and advances the true notion that sexual purity is bigger than virginity, fornication, and physical adultery. In “Let’s Think About This Practically: A Response to “I Lost My Purity (And I...
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March 27, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Ethics, Society
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It is common to find certain posts on social media that have gone viral. They are usually something provocative that challenges (at least in my circles) the standard Evangelical Christian sense of things, and almost always have some ensnaring title that promises titillation. I’ve been sitting on this...
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March 24, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Ethics, Society
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I’ve been reading of late, a lot of viral posts on social media in which a person accuses pastors and churches, teachers and schools, politicians, police, government agencies and the like of wrongdoing because they show “insensitivity” to “X” by defending some right, holding to some standard, enforcing some...
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March 22, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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Two realities confront us a Christians. The first is that, as loving members of our own communities, it is unthinkable that we do not do all that is in our power to secure the safety and prosperity general of that community. We are to pray for and participate...
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March 22, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Ethics, Society, Theology
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We’ve been considering the claim that Matthew’s appeal to YHWH’s historical deliverance of Israel from Egypt in Hosea 11:1 is proof positive that the NT writers cared little to nothing for the original context of the passages they quoted. They had, it is claimed, a Jesus hermeneutical lens...
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March 20, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Language Issues, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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Consequences, pain, suffering and loss are unwelcomed gifts from a loving creator to wayward creatures. Only discomfiture drives change. Only a sense of dissatisfaction with the world causes one to look up from his or her preoccupation with it, to consider what lies beyond it. Those who strive...
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March 17, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Theology, Worship
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I’ve had some interesting discussions this week about various churches’ perception of “Spirituality, Love & Humility,” My ministry is non-denominational and I travel around a bit so I encounter all kinds of interesting perceptions of these matters. In the movie Joyful Noise the choir director struggles with her...
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March 17, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society, Theology
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In this series we are laying the ground work for analyzing the common suggestion that Matthew 2:15 proves that the New Testament writers don’t care about the original context of the Old Testament texts that they interpret …and, thus, neither should we. I insist that they did care...
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March 15, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Studies, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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In part 1 of this series I introduced the common accusation that Matthew 2:15 proves that the New Testament writers don’t care about context. Matthew takes a text that was clearly intended to make an historical statement about God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt and declares it to...
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March 13, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Studies, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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What you are about to read is real. These are not actors, but are the actual opinions of the people who are expressing them. No, seriously, I couldn’t make these things up. Well, I’m pretty creative, so I could… but you’d accuse me a writing psychologically dishonest fiction....
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March 10, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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Matthew 2:15 is one of those passages that bothered me a lot when I was a young Bible college student. After reading the original passage from which this “fulfillment” was quoted, I asked a prof in class one day, little realizing the historical significance of my wording, “How...
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March 8, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT
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I had an over the top experience in a congregation yesterday after preaching a message on a Biblical Theology of Holiness, called “Whole Life Holiness.” I have grown accustomed to the fact that an exorbitant number of Millennials have a rather narcissistic view of their own qualifications to...
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March 6, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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We have invited Melodie Sargent, a student at Northpoint Bible college, back again to deliver another blog post. This time her attention is turned the importance of rhetorical structure in the first prophetic sermon of Amos. Enjoy. Amos 1:3–2:16 Background During the righteous reign of King Uzziah (Amos...
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March 3, 2017 Andrew Sargent
HAGALAH, Old Testament Studies
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Myopic visions of reality are a basic human trait. The mind is incapable of tracking enough information for a person to see everything, to know everything, to anticipate the effects of everything on other things. Thus, people tend to fixate on a few things and track those, to...
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March 1, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Society
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