Stopping to Think

  Photo by Martin Angelov on Unsplash [the footnotes won't copy into blogger for me, most of the good ideas aren't mine, the Bibliography is attached] Introduction One of the key elements of teaching on the kingdom of God in Scripture is the use of symbol, metaphor, and parable. One need only read the 13th chapter of Matthew to find comparisons made between the kingdom and  a sower and the fruitfulness of his work ,  a sower who sows good seed and received a mixed harvest ,  the seeming insignificance of a mustard seed ,  the slow work of yeast ,  the value of hidden treasure and a pearl ,  and a net thrown into the sea which pulls back a varied catch . One recurring symbol in biblical teaching, coming up in the prophets, and then again in the teaching of Jesus, is the fig tree. The purpose of this paper is to examine some key uses of fig imagery in both the Old and New Testaments, and then to draw theological conclusions for how we might understand th...

  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 ...

                                                                    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 injun...

"The major result of the many unrelenting scholarly attacks on the historical reliability of the New Testament has been to frustrate the attackers because again and again scripture has stood up to their challenges." Rodney Stark Commonplace Monday is a series of posts wherein, on Monday mornings, I share short quips, sentences -perhaps as much as a paragraph- which I have collected in my various commonplace books and files. If I wrote down or recall where it came from I will certainly give attribution. However, sometimes I write down things and not where they came from. So if you see anything like that here and recognize it, that's what comment sections are for.