Category: The Bible as Literature

The use of Isaiah 40 in all four gospels underscores the centrality of the wilderness as God’s base of operations for preaching the gospel outside of and in opposition to the things that human beings construct both mentally and physically. Still, this fact does not give us a license to claim an abstract understanding of…

What’s in a name? When Richard and I began this week’s episode, we were struck by the wealth of information packed into two verses. Through the simple arrangement of people and places, Luke leaves a trail of names, like breadcrumbs, along a path that moves all through the Bible, well beyond his gospel. In this…

“Let the canon of our and holy God-bearing Fathers be confirmed in this particular also; that a presbyter is not ordained before he is thirty years of age, even if he is a very worthy man, let him be kept back. Our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized and began teaching when he was thirty. In…

Western philosophy is obsessed with (dare I say, oppressed by) the illusion of choice. Let’s paraphrase a helpful example from Luis Elizondo to illustrate this point: Imagine you were given the power to build anything you want using your chosen materials. Your goal is to build something that can withstand the test of time, at…

In the natural world, as observed through the lens of the scientific method, when counting a person’s age, we measure their lifespan against the time it takes for our planet to revolve around the sun. We observe and measure phenomena. But we do not observe or measure phenomena in literature—perhaps especially in biblical literature. Instead,…

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul explains that God’s people are held up as an example of sin, not so that sin is excused or justified, but as a cautionary tale, codified in the story of Scripture, an example to all peoples of how not to behave. The parallel teaching, also found in…

Scripture is clever. When Simeon stands in the temple waiting, he does so at the pleasure of his master. He has no agency, control, or personal expectations, yet he has a duty. As his very name suggests, he is to hear and obey the words of God until his death, trusting that God will fulfill…

Universities, schools, and centers of faith are giving up on knowledge and selling out. What happened this past week at Hamline University indicates a trend in which an agenda other than the mission to impart knowledge controls what is permissible in the classroom. Knowledge is not a popularity contest. A teacher does not share information…

Lies are comfortable. We lie to soothe feelings. To make agendas appealing, to sell things. We find lies so attractive that we bend our terminology to accommodate them. Instead of analyzing information, we discuss “narratives.” Instead of taking responsibility for our actions and their outcomes, we rush to share our stories and our vision. “The…

Suppose you ask an American what’s wrong with the culture and have enough patience to wade through people’s anger and cheap sound bites. You’ll find surprising agreement across all ideological boundaries: something is broken. Even those hell-bent on defending American exceptionalism will eventually contradict themselves and blame someone for why things are not as great…