Sports Illustrated has an interesting article on the best and worst Super Bowl halftime shows. I’m looking forward to the game but probably won’t pay much attention to the halftime festivities. They’re more often than not disappointing and unremarkable, and it’s a great time to get up and replenish the hummus supply. A few years […]

Paul is one of the most familiar characters from the pages of the New Testament. Indeed, many Christians tend to read Scripture through a Pauline lens. It’s easy to make him one of “us,” whatever group it is that is “us.” We all tend to shape Paul according to our own image and then read […]

We’ve just begun a new academic semester, which means that last week I spent some time in class talking through syllabuses, explaining course content, describing textbooks, and the logic of various assignments. A student inquired as to how much thought goes into choosing course texts. It was a great question, and I explained the process […]

In an extended section of Paul and the Faithfulness of God, N. T. Wright takes pains to draw out the significance of “religion” in the first century. It wasn’t a separate sphere of life, but pervaded everything, down to the details of day-to-day existence. Because of the integral connection between “the gods” and the complex fabric of daily life, […]

Charles Blow had a very interesting column in the NY Times the other day about the corrosive effect of pundits in our culture. He cited Glenn Beck’s surprising recognition of his divisive behavior during his tenure at Fox News. I remember it as an awful lot of fun, and that I made an awful lot […]

According to the Christian calendar, today is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul. This is a meditation on the political character of Paul’s conversion. Before he was arrested and transformed by the exalted Jesus on the Damascus Road, Paul (called Saul, at the time) was a Pharisee.  As such, he had a thoroughly […]

David Brooks, in a lovely column called The Art of Presence, introduces a family that has reflected at length on suffering and how to care for and bring comfort to those traumatized by tragedy. Brooks highlights a few of the most important lessons for bringing grace and comfort to those who suffer: Be present. Don’t […]

I’m still in the midst of reading Paul and the Faithfulness of God, so I’m not yet certain that it will do in Pauline studies what Jesus and the Victory of God did in the study of Jesus and the Gospels. But while doing some digging for a writing project, I again came across these […]

Our Father in heaven, you guided the wise men to the worship of your Son by the light of a star.  Give us light, give us life, and draw us ever closer to you by the light of faith.  Enlighten and enliven our hearts to search after you just as they did.  Give us the […]