Genealogies, such as the one found in Matthew 1:1-17, are often thought to be deadly boring. I disagree!
(a) In Matthew’s list of 46 names, spanning 2,000 years, you will find non-descripts, heroes, women (each with an interesting story to tell!) and villains. See if you can find three examples of each of these types.
(b) What does this genealogy tell us about Mary and Joseph and their son Jesus? And what does it tell us about God’s purposes for the world?…
When we read a narrative from the Old Testament, we want to honour it as God’s word written, and yet we may be unsure how to do so. So we end up – all too often – mistreating and misapplying it in one or more of the following ways:-
No, this isn’t advice for parents reading The Chronicles of Narnia to their children at bedtime.
It is, rather, a set of tips to help the preacher get inside a piece of biblical narrative in order to find out how it is put together and how it works as a story. This is the preliminary work that a preacher needs to do in order to preach from the story in question. It is specific to narratives: letters, poems, proverbs, and parables required other approaches.…
When John Loftus (God or Godless, chapter 5) claims that ‘archaeologists have shown us there was no…exodus by the Israelites from Egypt’ I believe that I can easily show this to be mistaken and misleading.
Of course, if I were to point to the standard Christian reference works, then my assertion that most or all of them accept the historicity of the exodus might be met with the response, “Well, they would, wouldn’t they?” …
Did Jesus predict the return of Israel to their own land? R.T. France replies that when our Lord alluded to Old Testament predictions of such a return, he applies them not to the Jewish nation, but rather to the people of God gathered from all nations.
Matthew 8:11-12 uses the language of Ps 107:3; Isa 43:5-6; 49:12 (which speak of the return of the exiled Jews to their land) and applies it to the gathering of Gentiles into God’s kingdom, even declaring that the (Jewish) sons of the kingdom will be excluded.…
Isa Glaser suggests that the book of Hosea is interesting to read with Islam in mind because of (a) its critique of idolatry, (b) its scandalous sexual imagery, and (c) its even more scandalous record of a prophet being called to marry a prostitute.
In Islamic teaching, a prophet is kept from major sin, and it would be shameful for a man to take back an adulterous wife. Hosea 11 is about about the scandal of God taking back of adulterous Israel.…
Commenting on Psalm 6:5, Derek Kidner provides an excellent summary of Old Testament teaching on ‘sheol’ (the grave; the abode of the dead) and what lies beyond:-
…Sheol can be pictured in a number of ways: chiefly as a vast sepulchral cavern (cf. Ezek. 32:18–32) or stronghold (Pss 9:13; 107:18; Matt. 16:18); but also as a dark wasteland (Job 10:22) or as a beast of prey (e.g. Isa. 5:14; Jon. 2:2; Hab. 2:5). This is not definitive language, but poetic and evocative; and it is matched by various phrases that highlight the tragedy of death as that which silences a man’s worship (as here; cf 30:9; 88:10f.;
11. Male obligations have been re-branded as “privileges”. The male obligation to provide for his wife and children is now regarded as a privilege. No-one has bothered to ask men whether they would prefer to go out and work in an office, mine or factory, rather than spend more time with the family. But if a woman thinks she would be more fulfilled by going out to work, rather than staying at home, she should have the choice. …
Eggs are Expensive, Sperm is Cheap, by Greg Krehbiel. Crowhill Publishing, 2014.
Subtitled ’50 politically incorrect thoughts for men’, this little book aims to unsettle modern assumptions about women and men. Krehbiel invites us to consider that the ‘traditional’ way of understanding the two sexes may not be as oppressive as we have been told it is, and that today’s ideology may actually be very harmful to us all. He develops this in a disarming, amusing, and gently outrageous way.…
Peter Mead has posted a checklist of 20 questions (well, 88, actually, but they boil down to 20) about a preacher’s delivery.
I summarise:-
