Stopping to Think

  Text       28        “And it shall come to pass afterward,        that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;                    your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,        your old men shall dream dreams,        and your young men shall see visions.              29       Even on the male and female servants        in those days I will pour out my Spirit.  30 “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. 32 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls. Introduction and Author The book of Joel opens by telling us that the word of the LORD came to Joel, the son of Pethuel (1:1). His name means, “Yahweh is God,” and little el

                                                                    Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash A Response to “A Gospel on the Move” by Eric D. Barreto Introduction In his paper, “A Gospel on the Move: Practice, Proclamation, and Place in Luke-Acts,” Eric D. Barreto argues that from the narrative coming to us as the twin books of Luke and Acts we can draw imaginative tools useful for understanding and evaluating the world around us today. He extends this specifically into the area of border and imigration policy, encouraging his reader to embrace a disruptive and Jesus like stance toward including outsiders in our conception of family and those who belong. Appreciation Barreto asks an important question in his third paragraph on page 175, “how do we move from narration to injunction, from storytelling to ethics, and from narrative to action?” This is an important hermeneutical question. If James urges us to be doers and not mere hearers of the word (see James 1:22), then the qu

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  Photo by Pawan Sharma on Unsplash Introductions to Amos, Nahum, and Zephaniah Amos Author and Date Authorship of the book has traditionally been ascribed to the prophet Amos. Nothing is known about Amos other than what he reveals in 1:1 and 7:14, that he is a herdsman and dresser of sycamore figs, hailing from Tekoa. He was neither a prophet nor a priest, but was entrusted with a series of messages from the Lord (7:14-15).  The fact that he prophesied during the reigns of Uzziah in Judah and Jeroboam II in Israel indicate that his prophecy occurred between 765-750 B.C. Audience and Message This book is directed toward the northern kingdom of Israel, and the beating heart at the center of the book is God himself. The name Yahweh occurs by itself and in combination with other terms over 80 times in the book. The focus of Yahweh and His speech in the book is to warn Israel that the coming day of the Lord is sure, but it is surely bad news for them, rather than the good news they had

  Dark Sky by C.J. Box My rating: 5 of 5 stars It wasn't The Great American Novel, but it was fun, thrilling, and even thoughtful at a few points. I enjoy the Joe Pickett character immensely. View all my reviews

Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Unsplash A Response to “The Setting of Obadiah” Introduction In his paper The Setting of Obadiah ( Hassler, Mark A. 2016. “The Setting of Obadiah: When Does the Oracle Concerning Edom Transpire?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 59 (2): 241–54. ) Mark Hassler seeks to answer the question of his subtitle: When Does the Oracle Concerning Edom Transpire? The answer to this question matters because it shapes one’s whole interpretation of the prophecy. The Oracle’s Fulfillment Hassler lays out the three primary options for the timing of Edom’s humbling, as predicted in Obadiah’s vision. He gives props and cons for both a 9th century B.C. fulfillment and a fulfillment in the 6th century B.C. The main issue he raises with both of these timings is that there is no historical record of anything close to what Obadiah describes actually happening to Edom in these centuries (see pages 243-246).  What Hassler then goes on to argue is that this vision aw