Home »
Archive by category Biblical Studies (Page 7)
This is the heavily edited 6th narrative sermon in the Gospel of Mark. Here Mark uses a repeating story structure to portray Jesus as a deified man who overcomes the impossible in bigger than life miracles after the experts of the day have done all that the...
Continue reading
April 12, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Theology, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Meeting the Jesus of Mark, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT
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...
Continue reading
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 highly edited sermon on the 5th narrative sermon of the Gospel of Mark. In it I address Mark’s depiction of Jesus’ parable telling. It is the first record of Jesus’ actual teaching since the short snippet recorded in chapter one concerning the time of...
Continue reading
April 5, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Theology, HAGALAH, Inductive Study Methods, Meeting the Jesus of Mark, New Testament Studies
This is the first of a series of sermons drawn from a course I teach on inductive study that I call, MEETING THE JESUS OF MARK. I introduce the idea of interpreting gospel stories in terms of how the authors have woven various stories into narrative sermon...
Continue reading
April 3, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Theology, Meeting the Jesus of Mark, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT
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...
Continue reading
March 31, 2017 Andrew Sargent
New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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...
Continue reading
March 20, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Language Issues, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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...
Continue reading
March 15, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Studies, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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...
Continue reading
March 13, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Studies, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT, Old Testament Studies
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...
Continue reading
March 8, 2017 Andrew Sargent
101 Most Misunderstood Verses, Biblical Studies, HAGALAH, New Testament Studies, NT's Use of the OT
No Comment
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...
Continue reading
March 3, 2017 Andrew Sargent
HAGALAH, Old 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...
Continue reading
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,...
Continue reading
February 17, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Bible Backgrounds, Theology
No Comment
When I first made my attempt at radio, I tried my hand at some discussions with just me and my recorder at home. I use audacity and love it. This is a funky version of me delivering a lecture without the intellectual stimulation of a bemused or confused...
Continue reading
February 13, 2017 Andrew Sargent
HAGALAH
No Comment
A couple years ago, I received a phone call on a late Thursday afternoon asking if I could be the main speaker at a Men’s Conference two days hence. Something dreadful had happened to the scheduled speaker and they needed somebody fast and furious… without the guns...
Continue reading
February 6, 2017 Andrew Sargent
HAGALAH
Okay, so we’ve established that reading the books of the writing prophets is hard. They wrote in poetry; they make casual reference to cultural practices of which the modern reader is completely ignorant; they preach to their own people about events that are happening around them, without feeling...
Continue reading
February 1, 2017 Andrew Sargent
Biblical Studies, Inductive Study Methods, Old Testament Studies
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...
Continue reading
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...
Continue reading
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...
Continue reading
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...
Continue reading
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...
Continue reading
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
