Zechariah 12 is an underrated chapter in evangelical Christian reading. As with many other portions of the prophets, I believe that evangelical bickering over eschatological schema and arguments over the motives behind different hermeneutical methods have distracted rank and file Christians from many comforting details in these texts. I would like to look at what I believe is an overlooked comforting text of hope in Zechariah 12.
Continue reading “Zechariah, Why Do You Connect the Tents of Judah to the Messiah?”Divine Recognition of the Beauty of Secular Work
Continue reading “Divine Recognition of the Beauty of Secular Work”Who has counseled this against Tyre who crowns?
Isaiah 23:8–9
Whose merchants are princes, whose traders are the honored ones of the land?
YHWH of Hosts has counseled this to profane the majesty of all beauty,1
To curse all the honored ones of the land.
Biblical Studies Ruins Everything
Biblical studies refers to the academic study of the literature of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament. For those of you who did not know because of my long inopportune hiatus from writing this blog, I am now at Claremont School of Theology pursuing a PhD in Hebrew Bible (so, a biblical studies degree). I have a daughter who is six months old. Many things have changed. Many things have remained the same.
One of those things that has definitely remained the same is regularly finding myself in situations in which preachers overstay their welcome by speaking of things they know not of. Unfortunately they do not usually know what they don’t know. In my younger years I tended to mostly experience this on issues of science. In college and seminary I began to notice it sometimes regarding history. In these areas it is easy to extend grace; after all, who has time to specialize in everything? The preacher must specialize in the Bible.
But of course, I specialize in the Bible too. And there’s the rub; hearing preachers err regarding the Bible or languages behind it is a frequent occurrence. Biblical studies ruins everything when listening to preachers speak of what they know not of. Here are some examples.
Continue reading “Biblical Studies Ruins Everything”Reflecting with Fountain Pens
Now most of you troglodytes give little thought to your pens. Some of you think the fact that the occasional survival of a blue Bic Stic in the washing machine is a feature. Many more of you probably barely use analog writing tools at all. You probably borrow, lend, lose, and trash cheap peasant sticks ballpoint pens quite often. In this case, the value of a pen is less than a dollar, and the lifespan of that pen is weeks or months.
I use fountain pens. Since these are easily refillable with bottled ink, they can last a very long time. Now there’s nothing deeply spiritual or edifying in my fountain pen hobby itself, but a couple pens from my collection demonstrate how these writing implements help me reflect on life, beauty, and significance.
Continue reading “Reflecting with Fountain Pens”Did God Really Say That the Serpent Was the Craftiest Creature?
Let me get straight to the point. In Genesis 3:1, most English translations refer to the serpent as the craftiest creature in the garden. Take for example the ESV:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
Genesis 3:1, ESV
My contention is that while this translation is technically correct it is interpretively misleading and inconsistent with the translation of the same word in other contexts.
Continue reading “Did God Really Say That the Serpent Was the Craftiest Creature?”God’s Self-Revelation to Moses
This post is intended to correct an error. That error is the interpretation of Exodus 34:6–7, a passage which a recent blog post used as evidence that the Bible “instructs us to worship [God] in the fullness of his attributes—not merely through the prism of one or two favorites.” What is extremely strange about this claim is that Exodus 34:6–7 says no such thing; in fact, it presents God in what could essentially be described as “the prism of one or two key perfections.”
Continue reading “God’s Self-Revelation to Moses”What Ancient Temple Workers Would Have Us Learn Today
In reading the Psalms, we easily miss the little Psalms. Instead, our time and our meditation get caught up in the acrostic grandeur of Psalm 119 or the penitent piety of Psalm 51 or the emotional agony of Psalm 22 or 73. How is a short, three verse Psalm supposed to compete with these massive masterpieces? But sometimes this littleness belies the Psalm’s usefulness, for example in the case of Psalm 134.
Continue reading “What Ancient Temple Workers Would Have Us Learn Today”Are Rack, Shack, and Benny Really Protagonists?
Those privileged souls who grew up in the American church in the late 90s and early 2000s remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and a fiery furnace from Daniel 3 by means of the Veggie Tales episode Rack, Shack, and Benny. The details of this masterpiece of Christian cinema1 are irrelevant to my discussion here. Instead what I care about is the impression the young viewer received of the story of Daniel 3. And that impression can be summarized very easily by describing what I believe most people think is the plot of Daniel 3: Three Hebrew lads are in captivity in Babylon. When the Babylonian emperor tries to make the whole nation bow before a gold statue, they refuse, the evil emperor throws them in a super hot furnace, the lads are preserved by God and walk out of the furnace, the evil emperor says some nice stuff about how great their God must be. What is the takeaway? Stand strong against government tyranny and practice your faith even when the government (or your friends) says not to!
Revisiting Amos 5:24
Especially since 2018, apparently the most popular post on this blog is a short piece I wrote in the spring of 2016 on interpreting Amos 5:24. In that post, I argued, on the basis of the context in Amos as a book and Amos 5 as a chapter, that the popular understanding of Amos 5:24 as a hortatory call for the practice of justice is incorrect, and that the verse was intended as a call for judgment on Israel. Because of the popularity of the post and because of the confusion that commenters seem to have about why I wrote the post, I want to send this as an update.
Continue reading “Revisiting Amos 5:24”Jeremiah’s Failed Messiah
In the last post we talked about the theme of shepherds in Jeremiah. This sets up for a drama in Jeremiah 38–39: Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, is their shepherd. How will he fare when Nebuchadnezzar conquers Jerusalem?
Continue reading “Jeremiah’s Failed Messiah”
Citizens & Sons 