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This paper explores two disciplines largely considered and practiced separately: apologetics and expositional preaching. The challenges from expressive individualism, New Atheism, pragmatism within the church, apathy in the West towards the supernatural, and the 21st-century renaissance in Christian Apologetics present an opportunity to reclaim the ancient practice of exposition through an apologetics lens. I will … Read more
Brent Strawn, in The Old Testament is Dying, utilizes a linguistic analogy to describe the Old Testament as a dying language, undergoing various stages of pidginization and creolization. I apply his pidgin and creole language to contemporary worship music, the American evangelical corpus (henceforth AEC), to assess the shift in conceptual worship language in the … Read more
For Christians, God’s Word is the authoritative source for our understanding of God, self, and the world. A concern, however, is the temptation to rely on cultural voices to reframe human experiences rather than God’s story. As many have written, the Bible is God’s speech that is intended to be followed in life. See Kevin … Read more
The cryptic phrase “brood of vipers” (γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν), in Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33 and Luke 3:7, stands out as a shocking rebuke by both John the Baptizer and Jesus of the religious leaders of their day. This metaphor, portraying them as the offspring of venomous snakes, certainly points to their evil spiritual nature. When this … Read more
While Hosea 11:10-11 identifies the “roaring lion” as Yahweh, the prophet’s use of the Balaam Oracles in verses 10–11 evokes the promise of a new exodus led forth by the roaring lion of Judah (e.g., Gen 49:9; Num 24:9). The paradigm of the Exodus from Egypt serves as the pattern, or type, for the promised … Read more
The expectation that YHWH will accomplish justice for his people thereby vindicating their belief in him and their renunciation of human vengeance is a frequent element of the biblical storyline. The texts that call for God’s justice, however, do not always allow such a mundane portrayal of God’s justice. The imprecatory psalms provide a challenging … Read more
This presentation compares the teaching of the nature and causes of tyranny by two Muslim leaders, Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (1877-1960) and Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (1941-2024), with John Calvin’s (1509-1564) theology of God’s secret providence. Nursi’s commentary on the Qur’an, the Risale-i Nur, along with two published volumes of Gülen’s sermons, Yolun Kaderi (The Path’s Destiny), … Read more
Because of its manifold treasures, the Psalter has been rightly referred to in many complementary ways. It has been called a book of praises (tehilim), a book of prayers, a book of songs of faith, a royal hymnbook, the hymnbook of the church, sacred space, a little Bible (Martin Luther), a great house (Jerome), etc. … Read more
Jesus’ ministry in Luke is often understood against the background of an eschatological Jubilee “release” (ἀφεσις). His use of Isa 61 in the Nazareth synagogue address (Luke 4) is combined with subsequent enactments of ἀφεσις (both physical and spiritual) to form the basis for such an understanding. Recently, Logan Williams has argued (in JSNT 46.2) … Read more
The term μονογενής appears five times in the apostle John’s writings—four times in the Gospel of John (Jn 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18) and one time in his first epistle (1 Jn 4:9). Until the 20th century, the dominant rendering of the term in English versions has been “only-begotten.” But that common understanding was challenged by … Read more