We had an interesting discussion in class yesterday about the challenges of enduring church life while in seminary.  My students are a joyful bunch who love Jesus and his people, but they reflected honestly on the difficulty of dealing with the disconnects between what they study in class and what they observe in church. It […]

The passions aroused during an election season often drive sub-Christian behaviors and speech-patterns from professing Jesus-followers.  It’s all too easy to allow the cultural climate and its political pressures to shape our identity and even the orientation of our churches. A snippet from Richard Hays’s reflections on Galatians 2: Whenever we allow the identity of […]

Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassell was knocked out of their game against the Ravens yesterday.  In a pretty classless move, the Kansas City fans, frustrated at his performance, cheered Cassell’s injury. I heard someone on the radio decrying this unfortunate episode as another sign of our society’s increasing ugliness.  Within two decades, he said, games will […]

I’m spending the day (powered by the Greek God omelette) writing about Paul & politics. That Paul was little concerned with politics is a predominant view and many may prefer to hold to it in a day when Christian faith is so badly integrated with public political life. In a few talks over the next […]

We had an interesting discussion last night in Galatians about Paul’s wish that God would damn certain people in Gal. 1:8-9: But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you something other than what we previously preached to you, let him be damned!  As we said before, I will also say […]

I’m working on a paper on Paul’s political vision and am thinking a bit about the identity and mission of Israel that shaped Paul’s conception of the identity and mission of the church. Israel’s call to be a “holy people” was a thoroughly political commission.  Their social and economic practices were to be radically different […]

The instances are not few of nations, tribes, and political parties claiming a divine endorsement. Those who assume the righteousness of their cause and rally their supporters using biblical military imagery ought to keep in mind at least this one reality about the divine warrior tradition from the Old Testament. It is presumptuous for anyone […]

I began this series by observing that many Christians wonder why there is so much demonic activity in other parts of the world and so little here in the U.S. and in the West. At least one answer is that there may be more than we think.  We just miss it because we’re on the […]

At the Galatians conference in July, John Barclay gave a wonderful paper on the integral connection between doctrine and social practice.  He argued that in Paul’s view, justification by faith is not merely a notion to be affirmed or confessed. It must be socially embodied by communities of Jesus-followers that do not reckon each others’ […]

Lou Martyn, commenting on 1:11-12 and elucidating Paul’s “bifocal” vision in Galatians: This certain hope, grounded in God’s invasive action in the advent of Christ, is the apocalyptic good news Paul calls “the gospel.”  But its being apocalyptic is underlined by the fact that it is not visible, demonstrable, or provable in the categories and […]