I’m speaking this weekend about salvation as cosmic realm transfer and sanctification as learning to inhabit the new creation.  Among a few other Pauline texts, I’m making reference to Galatians 2:20-21.  Here’s my expanded translation: I died with Christ to that old realm so I don’t live there anymore, and I have been raised to […]

Scripture casts the whole range of human behavior in terms of worship.  Humanity is in the Creator God’s image, so their relating, their spreading over the whole earth, their overseeing creation’s flourishing, their exploring creation’s beauties, their creating and enjoying new aspects of culture—any of these and all of these constituted their worship of the […]

Paul and the writer of Hebrews both frame Christian discipleship in terms of worship. Hebrews may address some sort of crisis whereby the community will be separated from the temple.  How will they be able to maintain their relationship to God without participating in regular sacrifices? Hebrews assures them that holistic lives of doing good […]

It’s been a silly season for sports enthusiasts, especially here in the States.  The NBA playoffs have been unusually compelling, as have been those of the NHL.  The first third of the baseball season has been typically unpredictable and exciting, and we’re well into the tennis and golf seasons of major championships. It’s easy for […]

I’ve been busy the last four weeks teaching summer intensive courses on NT Biblical Theology and the Letter of Ephesians. I’m struck again by the priority the NT places on the unity of God’s people. In fact, this is one of the unique features of the church.  God’s people are “holy”—unlike the world—and their holiness […]

The final clause in Gal. 5:17 is notoriously difficult.  Paul exhorts his readers in vv. 16-17: And I say walk by the Spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh.  For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another […]

The U.S. Open lived up to its character in every way.  This championship is supposed to be contested over the year’s toughest layout, producing a champion who is tested in every way over four rounds of golf. Olympic is one of the toughest of the Open courses, known as the “Graveyard of Champions.”  The game’s […]

I’ve got a wonderful father and I get to be the dad of these three:

I’ve heard Jesus’ statement in Mark 14:7 cited to brush off the importance of ministry to the poor. This is entirely inappropriate, since Jesus is not uttering an economic truism—that on any measure of a society there will always be the poorest 20%.  Nor is he saying, “look, I do realize there will never be a […]

Bruce Longenecker has a fascinating new book out on the narrative dimensions of Luke’s Gospel.  It’s called Hearing the Silence: Jesus on the Edge and God in the Gap–Luke 4 in Narrative Perspective. He addresses the problem of the “under-narrated” episode in Luke 4:16-30.  Just after Jesus gives his Nazareth Manifesto in the synagogue, Luke […]