Category Archives: Bible

Preaching Old Testament characters

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Introduction

There are several reasons for exercising caution when planning to preach from an OT character:

  • a tendency to read biblical characters as heroes
  • a tendency to oversimplify biblical characters
  • a tendency to treat biblical characters as moral examples (‘Dare to be a Daniel’)
  • a tendency (in modern literature) to focus on the inner workings of people’s minds, which leads either to a frustration with biblical narratives or to a temptation to indulge in speculation of our own

A further challenge arises from our difficulty in separating out the narrator’s point of view and that of the character his/her self. …

1 Samuel 28:7-14 – Did Samuel visit from the grave?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

1 Samuel 28:7 Saul instructed his servants, “Find me a woman who is a medium, so that I may go to her and inquire of her.” His servants replied to him, “There is a woman who is a medium in Endor.”
28:8 So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothing and left, accompanied by two of his men. They came to the woman at night and said, “Use your ritual pit to conjure up for me the one I tell you.”…

Mt 10:28/Lk 12:4f – Whom should we fear?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Matthew 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Luke 12:4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do. 12:5 But I will warn you whom you should fear: Fear the one who, after the killing, has authority to throw you into hell.…

Romans 10:4 – ‘Christ is the end of the law’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Romans 10:1 Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God on behalf of my fellow Israelites is for their salvation. 10:2 For I can testify that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not in line with the truth. 10:3 For ignoring the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking instead to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law, with the result that there is righteousness for everyone who believes.…

Chris Wright: the conquest of Canaan

Walking With Giants Posted on by

This event is rightly unsettling.  Christopher Wright offers some points to help us evaluate it ethically:

  1. It was a limited event. The conquest narratives describe one particular period of Israel’s long history. Many of the other wars that occur in the OT narrative had no divine sanction, and some were clearly condemned as the actions of proud, greedy kings or military rivals.
  2. We must allow for the exaggerated language of warfare. Israel, like other ancient Near East nations whose documents we possess, had a rhetoric of war that often exceeded reality.
…

Matthew 8:22/Luke 9:60 – ‘Let the dead bury their dead’?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Mt 8:21 ‘[One] of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 8:22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”’

Lk 9:59 ‘Jesus said to another, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 9:60 But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”’…

Luke 14:26 – Hate your family?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

Richard Dawkins, after expressing approval for some of Jesus’ moral teaching, then objects,

‘Jesus’ family values were not such as one might wish to focus on. He was short, to the point of brusqueness, with his own mother, and he encouraged his disciples to abandon their families to follow him.

…

Matthew 10:34 – ‘Not peace, but a sword’?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Matthew 10:34 – “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword.”

(See also the parallel saying in Luke 12:51-  “Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”)

Looking no deeper than the literal meaning of the words used here, some sceptics see in this verse evidence that Jesus was a warmonger.…

Matthew 10:28 – ‘destroy’: everlasting punishment or annihilation?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Mt 10:28 – “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

The traditional view

The traditional interpretation goes back at least as far as Tertullian, who espoused a Platonic view of the immortality of the soul (see Fudge, The Fire That Consumes).

Blomberg asserts that

‘”kill,” like “destroy,” does not imply annihilation but eternal suffering, as the qualification “in hell” makes clear.’

…

Mt 12:30/Mk 9:40/Lk 11:23 – For, or against?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Matthew 12:30 – “Whoever is not with me is against me.” (Also Luke 11:23)

Mark 9:40 – “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

Bart Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted) asks:

‘Did [Jesus] say both things? Could he mean both things? How can both be true at once? Or is it possible that one of the Gospel writers got things switched around?’

Ehrman has failed to notice that these are not two versions of the same saying, but rather two distinct sayings uttered in different circumstances and for different purposes. …