Category: The Bible as Literature

The difficult teaching of Ecclesiastes warns us that all people share the same fate. This wisdom is pervasive in Scripture, from the violent imagery found in Deuteronomy to the razor’s edge of Paul’s argument in Romans. There is no difference between Jew and Greek; between the wise man and the fool; between the righteous and…

Having established that God—not herself—is her only reference, Mary moves to the next logical step from Scripture’s perspective: the proclamation of the fear of God. The terrible might of God; that the mere mention of his name strikes fear and brings the hope of mercy: mercy to those once enslaved and humiliated like Mary. In…

When someone of authority speaks, it is only natural for people of lessor status to use his words to establish their position. Politicians do it, corporate underlings do it, and Christians do it in their mishandling of the Bible. When God speaks in Scripture, his words come down from above. We plagiarize. We want to…

As the Spirit moves through chapter one of the Gospel of Luke, it exhibits its power as a mechanism of destruction but also as an implement of God’s control—prompting one to submit, teaching another to bless, and causing the Lord’s prophet to rejoice, even from his mother’s womb. The first to be filled with the…

The Scriptural God is not the God of a statue, a temple, a city, or a mountain, but the God of a story. For those who submit to this God as their heavenly Father, it is forbidden to stray outside his narrative in any thought, word, or deed that pertains to him. In life, this…

Normally, people don’t say much about the role of the Holy Spirit in the birth of John the Baptist—mainly because contemporary Mariology blinds them to the actual content of Luke’s gospel. But even for those who pay close attention, few people notice the discrepancy between the first visit of the Spirit to Jerusalem, pertaining specifically…

When we read a text in translation, we imagine we hear what the author wrote because we believe that meaning can be taken separately from the words on the page. But if you can conceive of meaning, it needs must be part and parcel with a series of words. If not the words of the…

In the Old Testament, human patriarchy is portrayed cynically and satirically as bumbling and insecure in its competition with motherhood. Men cannot give birth. In Scripture and life, they compensate by building cities, erecting monuments, and making war. Mothers, on the other hand–not necessarily women–but the function mother can give birth. As Luke continues down…

The problem with all contemporary churches is that we treat the term Scripture as though it were a noun. We gossip about the Bible like a difficult relative nobody wants to visit, but everyone loves to discuss. We comfort ourselves with lullabies about its importance. We mostly ignore it unless we need a good quote…

Everyone has something to say. If you operate on a human premise, this is perfectly acceptable, admirable–even a thing to be encouraged. It is the empty fuel that makes dead things look alive, an entertaining distraction that makes emptiness feel meaningful. Not so in Scripture. In the wilderness of God’s scroll, there is only one…