Category Archives: Bible

Mk 6:8f; Mt 10:10; Lk 9:3 – Staff, or no staff?

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Mk 6:8 He instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—6:9 and to put on sandals but not to wear two tunics.

Mt 10:9f ‘”Do not take gold, silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for the journey, or an extra tunic, or sandals or staff, for the worker deserves his provisions.”‘

Lk 9:3 ‘He said to them, “Take nothing for your journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, and do not take an extra tunic.”‘…

Acts 9:7/22:9 – What did Paul’s companions see and hear?

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Acts 9:7 (Now the men who were traveling with him stood there speechless, because they heard the voice but saw no one.)

22:9 “Those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.”

Acts 9:7 appears to be saying that Paul’s companions heard but did not see, whereas according to Acts 22:9 they saw but did not hear.

This apparent discrepancy is discussed as a ‘test case’ in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Zondervan).…

Exodus 6:2 – When was the name ‘Yahweh’ first made known?

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Exodus 6:2 “I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.”

The Issue

Source critics point out that this (attributed to ‘P’) appears to contradict Gen 4:26 (attributed to ‘J’), which says that men called upon the name of the LORD as early as the days of Enosh (see also Gen 12:8; 28:13).

Steven DiMattei asks:

‘When was the name Yahweh first invoked: in the earliest generations of man OR not till Moses at Sinai?

…

1 Sam 34:1-4; 2 Sam 1:1-10 – How did King Saul die?

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According to 1 Samuel 34:1-14, Saul asked his armor-bearer to kill him, but the armor-bearer refused, and so Saul fell on his own sword and committed suicide.

However in 2 Samuel 1:1-10 an Amalekite claims to have killed Saul, at his (Saul’s) request.

What should we make of this discrepancy?

Some, such as Ackroyd, think that the two accounts represent two incompatible ‘traditions’ concerning Saul’s death.

Others, such as Brueggemann, are unwilling to adjudicate on the relative historicity of the two accounts.…

Exodus 3:1-3 – The burning bush

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3:1 Now Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. 3:2 The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a bush. He looked—and the bush was ablaze with fire, but it was not being consumed! 3:3 So Moses thought, “I will turn aside to see this amazing sight.…

Discussion Starters, Acts 16:16-40

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(a) In the lead-up to this imprisonment, Paul deals with a slave girl ‘who had a spirit’. It is not immediately obvious that this was an evil spirit. Why might we suppose that this was indeed an evil spirit and that Paul was right to make it leave the girl?

(b) Paul’s (and his companions’) visit to Philippi was in direct response to a vision from God (verses 6-10). But it led them into big trouble with the authorities, and to flogging and imprisonment.…

Discussion Starters, Acts 16:11-15

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Lydia is described as a woman who ‘worshiped’ God, whose heart the Lord ‘opened…to respond to Paul’s message’.

(a) What do you think it meant for Lydia to have been a ‘worshiper of God’?  Who today might be similarly described, but has yet to hear and respond to the Christian message?

(b) Lydia’s experience of coming to Christian faith seems to have been quite calm and unspectacular.  Paul’s, on the other hand, had been much more dramatic. …

Acts 16:10, etc. – The ‘we’ passages

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Acts 16:10 After Paul saw the vision, we attempted immediately to go over to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

16:11 We put out to sea from Troas and sailed a straight course to Samothrace, the next day to Neapolis, 16:12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of that district of Macedonia, a Roman colony. We stayed in this city for some days.…

1 Cor 11:29 – Eating and drinking ‘without careful regard for the body’

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11:27 Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 11:28 A person should examine himself first, and in this way let him eat the bread and drink of the cup. 11:29 For the one who eats and drinks without careful regard for the body eats and drinks judgment against himself.

What is meant by eating and drinking ‘without careful regard for the body’?…

How Messianic are the Psalms?

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This question is discussed by Stephen Kneale.

Do we look for Christ in all the psalms, or only in this customarily considered to be Messianic?

Expositors from Augustine to Luther tended to take the maximalist approach.  Calvin, however, stressed the original contexts of the psalms, and so adopted a more minimal interpretation.

In recent times, Bonhoeffer and Ash have leant towards the maximalist position, whereas others, including Dale Ralph Davis, incline towards a more limited reading.…