These two chapters, as well as some (now several millennia later) boring stuff about wells, contain some of the heights and depths of human experience. A birth to a childless couple, well well after normal childbearing years, and nasty vindictive selfishness. But also an outrageous demand from God, blind obedience and a few hints of [&hellip...
Proverbs are pithy sayings. Short, thought-provoking, often using vivid imagery proverbs work by making you think. But they are often used as a source of quick simple answers. The book of Proverbs is a collkection of loads of such sayings with a long preface and short epilogue that encourage young men to meditate on this [&hellip...
This is the passage that makes sense of Gen 2, and of human life. Our world and our lives are broken and spoiled because of sin. Sin is not breaking rules, it is breaking relationship with the maker by wanting to assume the power ourselves. The reading of Genesis 3 is here. There is another [&hellip...
Introducing Genesis 1 & 2, with their radical message. Reading them to answer HOW questions is misreading! They intend to answer more important WHY questions. It began a podcast series on the Essential 100 Bible Readings, the Bible readings themselves are available as audio (MP3) files here. (I also dealt with Genesis 1 in a [&hellip...
Prophets and prophecy: the most misunderstood part of OT, “mysterious messengers”. A random chunk from a prophetic book will offer a confusing, seemingly muddled, confusion of vivid picture language. Yet, three simple principles can (usually) unlock the mystery and allow the prophets to speak: conversion not prediction context not timeless conversation not monologue As I’ll [&hellip...
Although all my talks on the E100 readings should be listed here (in roughly reverse order) the listing here is much more convenient: E100 reflections on each reading...
In this podcast I’ll introduce the idea of the ending of John as a sphragis, and very briefly mention what that might mean for reading John’s gospel, but most of the time will be spent on the much less technical question of why I am convinced that Jesus rose from death and met with the [&hellip...
This chapter gives what it tells us is an eyewitness account of a Roman execution. Jesus, who has done no real wrong, except offend the religious leaders, and worry the politicians is subjested to the casual brutality of an imperial production-line death. Such a death, of an innocent man, is shocking. But Jesus was not [&hellip...
In this chapter, we get the climax of John’s series of sayings where Jesus echoes the divine “I am” cf. Exodus 3 (E100-17: Exodus 3-4: Getting the holy between your toes!), and we also notice how amid powerful people who seem muddled and out of control, Jesus (the one who seems to be the victim) [&hellip...
Passover was the greatest pilgrimage festival for 1st century Jews, Jerusalem was packed with people (like for a world cup – only more crowded 😉 celebrating the great liberation from foreign oppression that God worked for Moses and the ancestors in Exodus. No wonder the Romans were jumpy, no wonder the Sadducees on the Sanhedrin [&hellip...
