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Is the Holy Spirit a ‘she’?

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The problems associated with applying personal pronouns to God are well-known.  Is God a ‘he’, a ‘she’ or an ‘it’?

In A More Christlike God, A More Beautiful Gospel, Brad Jersak writes:

‘Even using the simple pronoun ‘he’ for God is awkward and inaccurate…God is not a ‘him’ or a ‘her.’ Jesus said “God is Spirit” (John 4:24). But God is far more personal than an ‘it.’ Thus, we lean to the language of ‘him’ historically because when God showed up in the flesh, ‘he’ came as a man, Jesus (his ‘son’).

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How can we pray Psalm 137?

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Psa 137:7 Remember, O LORD, what the Edomites did
on the day Jerusalem fell.
They said, “Tear it down, tear it down,
right to its very foundation!”
137:8 O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated!
How blessed will be the one who repays you
for what you dished out to us!
137:9 How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies
and smashes them on a rock!

These sentiments seem far removed from the ethics of Christ’s kingdom. …

Conquest and Exodus

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Andrew Wilson discusses Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God by Matthew Lynch:

“Joshua portrays the conquest as a continuation of Israel’s liberation from Egypt’s power,” writes Matthew Lynch in his very helpful new book, Flood and Fury: Old Testament Violence and the Shalom of God. “Moreover, the focus of Israel’s destructive energies was directed against the four symbols of imperial power present in Canaan.”

Warlords: Joshua consistently emphasises the defeat of the Egyptian-backed warlord kings, as the summary report in Joshua 12 makes abundantly clear. 

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1 Tim 6:11; 2 Tim 3:18 – ‘Man of God’

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1 Tim 6:9 Those who long to be rich, however, stumble into temptation and a trap and many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evils. Some people in reaching for it have strayed from the faith and stabbed themselves with many pains.
6:11 But you, as a person dedicated to God [lit. ‘O man of God’], keep away from all that.…

What colour was Jesus’ robe?

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All four Gospels record that, during the trial of Jesus, he was mockingly dressed in a robe:

Mt 27:27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s residence and gathered the whole cohort around him. 27:28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe (χλαμύδα κοκκίνην) around him, 27:29 and after braiding a crown of thorns, they put it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand, and kneeling down before him, they mocked him: “Hail, king of the Jews!”…

Gender pairs in Jesus’ teaching

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Sara Parks makes some interesting observations about ways in which *Jesus often used both male and female examples in his teaching.

Jesus often taught the same lesson twice, using male- and female-oriented examples:

  • the mustard seed and the yeast (Mt 13:31f)
  • the ravens and the lilies (Lk 12:22-34)
  • the lost sheep and the lost coin (Lk 15)
  • the widow and the lepers (Lk 4:25-27)
  • the persistent neighbor and the persistent widow (Lk 18)
  • the Queen of the South (Lk 11:31) and the men of Nineveh (Lk 11:32)
  • the lost sheep and the lost coin (Lk 15:4-10)
  • farming and spinning (Mt 6:26-29)
  • bread-making and fishing (Mt 7:9f)

In some of these pairs, no people are mentioned at all. …

Teraphim

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Stephen L. Cook notes that the word ‘teraphim’ occurs 15 times in the Hebrew scriptures.

The usual translation – ‘household gods’ – is, he suggests, somewhat misleading.

Cook thinks that they were effigies of deceased ancestors that were believed to live on in a different form, watching over a person’s household, Exod 21:6; 1 Sam 28:13; Isa 8:19.

In Gen 31:30 Laban searches for his stolen teraphim, calling them his elohim (a term that can apply to supernatural beings other than major deities, cf.…

The good news of God’s judgment

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Bruce Milne writes

‘Properly understood…God’s judgment is good news as well as bad. The negative certainly arises for those who have committed evil and refused to repent. But there is a glorious positive here as well, for God’s judgment means nothing less than the establishing of his just and joyous reign, the putting right of all that has gone wrong, and the liberation of all things from the usurping reign of evil. It is this perspective that enables the psalmist to celebrate God’s judgments: ‘Let the heavens re- joice, let the earth be glad…let the fields be jubilant…the trees… will sing for joy…before the LORD, for he comes…to judge the earth…and the peoples in his truth’ (Ps.…

Can we do ‘Christ-like’ miracles?

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Dr Peter May is a retired GP who has taken a particular interest in claims of miraculous healing.

Dr May is not a thorough-going sceptic.  He is a Christian who has served the church in a variety of ways over many years.  He believes that God answers prayer, and that this might lead to the improvement or recovery of a sick person.  He believes that the miracles attributed to Jesus actually happened.

But he does not believe that ‘Christ-like’ miracles occur today.…

Jesus as the new Moses in Matthew’s Gospel

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Readers of Matthew’s Gospel have long pondered and puzzled over his references and allusions to the Old Testament Scriptures.

Bart Ehrman invites us to consider the story that Matthew tells in his first five chapters:

  • a male child is miraculously born to Jewish parents,
  • but a fierce tyrant in the land is set to destroy him.
  • The child is supernaturally protected from harm in Egypt.
  • Then he leaves Egypt and is said to pass through the waters (of baptism).
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