In this edited sermon, I consider Jeremiah 45 in historical, grammatical and literary context. Baruch has been called away from a life of promise to play second fiddle to a hated prophet… to share in Jeremiah’s suffering and rejection. He is less than excited by the call...
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April 26, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Old Testament Studies
If a person sets the various stories of Hezekiah into chronological order a fascinating pattern emerges. Hezekiah is a man of great faith during a time great crisis. He is all the more remarkable considering his father, who was a true reprobate who sold out Judah to...
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April 21, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, HAGALAH, Old Testament Studies
This is an edited sermon about the meaning behind Matthew’s claim that Joseph moving to Nazareth was a fulfillment of Scripture. It explores the meaning of “fulfillment” in the New Testament, the history of the city, the nature of Matthew’s use of the prophets, the problem with spelling...
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April 19, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, HAGALAH, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT
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I am pleased to welcome Othello Mugugu back as a guest blogger today. He originally hails from Zimbabwe, has a Bachelors from Northpoint Bible College, Serves in the American Army, has completed his Masters in Religious Studies from Providence College in Providence Rhode Island. Today he has allowed me to...
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April 14, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, HAGALAH, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT
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This is the 8th narrative sermon in the Gospel of Mark in which Jesus’ confrontation of the Pharisaic regulations called “The Traditions of the Elders,” which are a body of 18 new oral laws passed by the religious leaders in order to drive a wedge of hatred...
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April 10, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Meeting the Jesus of Mark, New Testament Studies
This is a heavily edited New Years Day message that I delivered at Darlington Congregational Church in Pawtucket Rhode Island a few years ago. Being heavily edited, it is not only short, but also gets to the point without a lot of hoopla. I consider the importance that...
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February 24, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Theology, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
Today we have a guest blogger. Melodie Sargent is a student at Northpoint Bible College and has written a short reflection paper on issues related to the reliability of Scripture. Rather than work the typical saws that we Evangelicals work in terms of fulfilled prophecy and the like,...
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February 17, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Theology
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Okay, so the Prophetic books in Scripture are both awesome and awfully difficult to understand. They have a pesky habit of preaching under divine inspiration about events that they never explain… they didn’t need to; their original audience already knew all about it. Another difficulty that plagues their...
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January 30, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, Inductive Study Methods, Old Testament Studies
In my last post, I introduced the background to the book of Isaiah in vague pictures designed to capture the essence of the political, social & religious dynamic at work in his world. This portrait is an essential part of understanding the many prophetic sermons recorded in the...
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January 25, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, Old Testament Studies
Let’s be honest. Reading “The Prophets” is hard. Well, reading them isn’t hard, at least not in translation, but understanding them is. I’m talking about books like, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and The Book of the Twelve… what we like to call “the minor prophets.” These books are victims...
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January 23, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, Old Testament Studies
The garment hem plays an unexpected role in many Scriptures. It is unexpected because we have nothing like it in our western world. Below is a link a recent lecture I delivered on the subject of the importance of reading Scripture within ITS OWN historical context and not...
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January 20, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Old Testament Studies
I love puzzles, always have. Growing up, I saw puzzles of all kinds as a natural exercise of my desire to be a detective someday, tracing out subtle clues to help me zero in on bad guys. Becoming a biblical scholar, then, has always seemed right on target...
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January 18, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, Biblical Theology, HAGALAH, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
In my last blog I began discussing issues of grammar and word meaning in Genesis 3:8. The text is typically translated with something akin to “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and...
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November 28, 2016 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Old Testament Studies
In two previous posts[1] I’ve been discussing Proverbs 22:6 and the translation issues involved in what seems a rather ambiguous central phrase, “upon the mouth of his way” which seems best when translated “according to his way.” We considered how only two of the six suggested interpretations of...
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November 14, 2016 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Old Testament Studies
In a previous post, we turned our attention to a literal rendering of Proverbs 22:6,[1] which being one of the most hurled about texts, whether in accusation, self-defense, or hopeful soothing, suffers much in the shadow of questionable translation. The problem phrase “על־פי דרכו upon the mouth of...
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November 11, 2016 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Language Issues, HAGALAH, Old Testament Studies
I am a patient scholar. I regard the entire process of biblical interpretation as a complex interdependence of people over millennia trying to plumb the depths of Scripture through an ongoing dialogue. Many souls bring things to the corporate table. Most Bible interpreters have done their best, even...
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November 4, 2016 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds
While foolishly engaging a Twitter troll the other day, as this egomaniacal barbarian cursed the idea of God and Scripture, declaring Christianity and all other religion the source of all evil, (200 million dead at the hands of atheists not withstanding) I asked the man if he understood...
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October 24, 2016 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies, Society
In two recent posts we began to discuss the implication of reading Genesis as an Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) Ancestor Epic, a collection of stories that a people tell themselves about how they almost weren’t, about their deliverance by their God to fulfill his purposes in and through...
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October 21, 2016 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Old Testament Studies
In a recent post we began discussing the nature of Genesis as an ancestor epic—the stories that a people tell themselves about how they almost weren’t a people. Crises have arisen in a people’s past which, save for the sovereign hand of their God, who has a purpose...
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October 19, 2016 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Old Testament Studies
When reading any document it helps to know what you are reading. Is this document a comic meant to be funny, mocking or otherwise derisive? Is this document a fiction meant to entertain? Is this document a body of laws meant to form the rules of a society?...
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October 17, 2016 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Old Testament Studies
