Stopping to Think

Photo by Jessica Delp on Unsplash An Exegetical Paper on Isaiah 8:11-22 Text 11 For the LORD spoke thus to me with his strong hand upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying: 12 “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. 13 But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. 14 And he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken.”  16 Bind up the testimony; seal the teaching among my disciples. 17 I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him. 18 Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are signs and portents in Israel from the LORD of hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion. 19 And when t...

An Exegetical Paper on Malachi 2:10-16 Text 10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the LORD of hosts!  13 And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God...

Photo by Nico Smit on Unsplash A Response to “Isaiah 53 in the Pulpit” Introduction In his paper Isaiah 53 in the Pulpit ( Goldingay, John, and John E Goldingay. “Isaiah 53 in the Pulpit.” Perspectives in Religious Studies 35, no. 2 (Sum 2008): 147–53) John Goldingay attempts to marry homiletical form with contemporary exegesis of Isaiah 53. Behind his quest is a question posed by G.A. Brame in a 2005 article ( Brame, Grace Adolphsen. “The Cross: Payment or Gift?” Perspectives in Religious Studies 32, no. 2 (Sum 2005): 67–81) , asking why this was not more readily being done. If so many modern exegetes have moved on from the idea of Isaiah 53 being a prophecy of Jesus’ penal substitution for sinners, why do people in the pulpits and the pews continue to cling to such archaic interpretations?  What I will seek to do in this brief paper is to first interact with one of Goldingay’s interpretive assumptions, and secondly, to compare his exegesis with the text itself. When Was Isa...

  "Simply telling people what to think in order to be orthodox, and then expecting them to be disciples, is like telling people what they should eat in order to be healthy and then expecting them to lose weight." Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Hearers & Doers, pg 54

We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang - The Battle that Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore My rating: 4 of 5 stars Moore and Galloway weave together an intense and fascinating narrative, taking the reader into some of the first major engagements of U.S. troops in the Vietnam war. But while the relation of the battles themselves is engaging and emotionally moving, that's not all there is in this book. There are no punches pulled when Moore speaks about the failures of the Johnson administration, and there is no heartstring left un-pulled he quotes from the individuals who lost loved ones in the battles in the Ia-Drang that fall of 65. View all my reviews  

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz My rating: 3 of 5 stars 3.25-3.5 This was not an enjoyable book-not due to the writing, Dunbar-Ortiz is perfectly capable in that department. But this history she records is unbelievably depressing. Some of her analytical tools fail her (critical theory, Marxist theory) and cause her to at times over-state the case or impute ill (Colonialist and Racist) motives to those who were undoubtedly concerned more with self-preservation and opportunity than with the destruction of the Native Peoples of the United States. One needn't say all white settlers and government officials had ill motives in order to make clear the horrific impacts such motives had in influencing the culture. But whether or not one agrees with all of her analysis, the plain facts recorded of the immense number of Indigenous people killed, displaced, and otherwise harmed, treaties re-written, broken, and ignored, and the many attempts b...

  "Why are you preaching this sermon? That obvious question draws many inadequate answers. [...] No matter how brilliant or biblical a sermon is, without definite purpose it will not be worth preaching." Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching, pg 107