Isa 56:3-5 – Eunuchs included among God’s people?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

55b “The eunuch should not say,
‘Look, I am like a dried-up tree.’ ”
56:4 For this is what the LORD says:
“For the eunuchs who observe my Sabbaths
and choose what pleases me
and are faithful to my covenant,
56:5 I will set up within my temple and my walls a monument
that will be better than sons and daughters.
I will set up a permanent monument for them that will remain.”

The issues to be explored here are (a) whether this inclusion of eunuchs among the people of God represents a change of mind from earlier biblical teaching, and (b) whether this signals the inclusion of other groups who might be considered similar to eunuchs (especially transgender persons).…

Jeremiah 7:31 – Does the Lord deny that he ever commanded child sacrifice?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Jer 7:31 ‘They have also built places of worship in a place called Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters by fire. That is something I never commanded them to do! Indeed, it never even entered my mind to command such a thing!’ (Emphasis added)

Jer 19:5 ‘They have built places here for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire.…

Ezekiel 20:25f – Did God change his mind about child sacrifice?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Eze 20:25f  “I also gave them decrees which were not good and regulations by which they could not live.  I declared them to be defiled because of their sacrifices—they caused all their first born to pass through the fire—so that I would devastate them, so that they will know that I am the LORD.”

How can it be that the Lord would give his people ‘decrees which were not good’?  And what ‘decrees’ are being referred to here?…

Exodus 22:29-30 – Did God command child sacrifice?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Ex 22:29-30 – “Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the firstborn of your sons. You must also do this for your oxen and for your sheep; seven days they may remain with their mothers, but give them to me on the eighth day. “ (Emphasis added)

Does this command require the sacrificial slaughter of firstborn sons?

Jon Levinson (Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity, 1993):  Ex 22:29 requires the sacrificial slaughter of firstborn sons. …

Edwards, revival, and suicidal thoughts

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Christopher Hays, in The Widening of God’s Mercy (co-authored with his father, Richard Hays), judges that Jonathan Edwards seems to have paid little attention to God’s love for humankind.  He portrays God, rather, as resplendent in glory, having no need of us, his unworthy subjects.

Not surprising, then, that Edwards, in his (in)famous sermon on ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God’, writes threateningly of impending doom for unrepentant sinners:

‘The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.

…

Luke 7:11-17 – The compassionate heart of Jesus (sermon notes)

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Notes of a sermon preached at St. Andrew’s Eaton on the morning of 3rd November 2024.

11 Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him.  12 As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town.

We’re up in Galilee, just five miles from Nazareth. …

Acts 4:32 – 5:11 – Ananias and Sapphira (sermon notes, v2)

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Notes of a sermon preached at St Edumunds, Costessey, and again at St Helen’s, Costessey, on 27th October, 2024.

Here is ‘one of the most unnerving episodes in the entire NT.’ (Dunn)

‘Your God is too small.’ (Title of a book by J.B. Philips)

Resident Policeman – waiting to blow the whistle as soon as you step out of line
Emergency Firefighter – useful in an emergency
Slot-Machine – put in a prayer, and receive miracle
Cheerleader – just wants everyone to have a good time

‘The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him – and of her.’…

‘The God I Want’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

This was the intriquing title of a book which was published in 1967.  The editor, James Mitchell, collected a number of essays, written by well-known personalities, which described the sort of God the authors were willing to believe in.

More recently, the Rev. Dr. Clay Smith, the lead pastor of Alice Drive Baptist Church in Sumter, has written a piece with the same title.  It demonstrates well the gulf between ‘the God I want’ and ‘the God I need’; between a God of human fabrication and the God of divine revelation.…

Theology of Prayer 3 – Parts of Prayer (ii)

Walking With Giants Posted on by

B.M Palmer, Theology of Prayer, ch. 3

Confession and supplication.  These together form the language of guilt, with which we must all approach the Almighty.

Man’s first duty is obedience to the law.  Now, having transgressed the law, his first responsibility is to repent and confess.

In Greek, Latin and English, the word literally means, ‘to speak together’.  In confession, God and man unite in an agreed declaration concering sin.

  1. It begins with a clear perception of the nature of sin. 
…

Lk 19:12-26 and ‘editorial fatigue’

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In Jesus, Contradicted, Michael Licona discusses the issue of ‘editorial fatigue’ as a way of explaining some of the differences between the Gospels.

He quotes Mark Goodacre:

When one writer is copying the work of another, changes are sometimes made at the beginning of an account that are not sustained throughout. The writer lapses into docile reproduction of the source. Like continuity errors in film and television, editorial fatigue results in unconscious mistakes, small errors of detail that naturally arise in the course of constructing a narrative.

…