Luke 21:18 – “Not a hair on your head will perish”

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This difficult saying has been understood in various ways:-

1. Some, such as Barnes, think that this is a promise of supernatural protection to a particular people at a particular time.  Barnes thinks that this was fulfilled at the time of the fall of Jerusalem, when it has been thought that Christians suffered no serious harm.  But Kidner (commenting on Psa 121:7f) notes that

‘God’s minutest care (‘not a hair of your head will perish’) and his servants’ deepest fulfilment (‘you will win true life’, NEB) are promised in the same breath as the prospect of hounding and martyrdom (Luke 21:16f.).’

…

Science and miracles

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Sir Colin Humphreys recently spoke at Norwich Cathedral on ‘How Can Science Fit With Miracles?’.

A video recording of the lecture, together with the Q & A session which followed, can be found here.

Sir Colin spent most of his time discussing three miracles – the ancient Israelites’ crossing of the River Jordan, the crossing of the ‘Red Sea’, and the resurrection of Jesus.

When approaching miracles from a scientific perspective, he said, we should first ask if any known natural mechanisms can be invoked in order to help us understand what happened.…

Proverbs 22:6 – ‘Train a child’

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22:6 Train a child in the way that he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.

This well-known proverb has been understood in a variety of ways.

In popular Christian thinking, it is thought to constitute an unconditional promise to parents.  It is taken as a guarantee of the success of early training of children.  But not a few parents find that, despite their best efforts at bringing up their child ‘in the way he should go’, when he is old he does turn from it. …

Joshua 3:7-17 – Crossing the Jordan

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Josh 3:14 When the people left their tents to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. 3:15 When the ones carrying the ark reached the Jordan and the feet of the priests carrying the ark touched the surface of the water—(the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest time)—3:16 the water coming downstream toward them stopped flowing. It piled up far upstream at Adam (the city near Zarethan); there was no water at all flowing to the sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea).…

Proverbs 26:4f – ‘Answer a fool’?

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Prov 26:4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you will be like him yourself.

Prov 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.

Here is one of the most famous, and seemingly most blatent, of all the Bible ‘contradictions’.

This pair of verses is marked up by the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible as ‘absurd’.  And, according to Kidner, even some rabbis thought that they were inconsistent, leading them to doubt the authority of the entire book.…

The honour and shame of the cross

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We are often told that ancient societies, such as Israel, were ‘honour-shame’ cultures.

How does the relate to the crucifixion of Jesus?

To be sure, crucifixion was not only a terribly painful death, but also a shameful one.

We see something of the humiliation of Jesus’ death in Mark’s Gospel.  Abandoned by his friends, tortured, and hung up (probably naked) to endure a lingering death in full public view.  And yet Mark communicates a certain honour to that which most would have found utterly shameful. …

Exodus 14 – The crossing of the Red Sea

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Exodus 14:21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the LORD drove the sea apart by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided. 14:22 So the Israelites went through the middle of the sea on dry ground, the water forming a wall for them on their right and on their left…14:26 The LORD said to Moses, “Extend your hand toward the sea, so that the waters may flow back on the Egyptians, on their chariots, and on their horsemen!”…

What is sin?

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I find that, in evangelical circles, sin is often mentioned, but rarely defined.

We are willing to ‘acknowledge that we are sinners’, and the affirm that ‘Jesus died for our sins’, but want quickly to move on to something that feels more positive, more upbeat.  Is it that we don’t want to offend (ourselves or others)?  Or perhaps that we don’t really feel the ‘exceeding sinfulness of sin’?

Randall Pelton notes a common definition of ‘sin’:

Sin is any lack of conformity to the character of God, whether by act, disposition, or state.…

Is the Bible at odds with itself?

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Distinguished biblical scholar Walter Brueggeman certainly thinks so.

On the question of human sexuality (and homosexual practice in particular) he finds ‘texts of rigor’ such as Leviticus 18:22, 20:13 and Deuteronomy 23:1 to be incompatible with ‘texts of welcome’ such as Isaiah 56, Matthew 11:28–30, Galatians 3:28 and Acts 10.

One of the problems with Brueggemann’s position, as Ian Paul has pointed out, is that the supposed contradictions are not only between disparate parts of Scripture and different authors. …

Psalm 46:10 – ‘Be still and know that I am God’

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NET: “Stop your striving and recognize that I am God!”

NIV: ‘Be still and know that I am God’.

The text misunderstood

In popular piety and Christian song, this injunction is often (mis)understood to be a call to quiet meditation.

The following well-known worship song (whose author and composer are unknown) is based on Psa 46:10, and is described here as a ‘meditative, chant-style hymn’:

Be still and know that I am God,
Be still and know that I am God,
Be still and know that I am God.…