Blogs

New article at the Biblical Studies Center. Nothing very original, but hopefully, helpful.

Interesting application for adding pie graphs to your web page without building your own graphic.

In our co-ed Bible study, we’re currently listening to the audio set by James Jordan, “How to Read the Bible.” Tonight we heard the second session, entitled “Beware of Rules;” Jordan also covered his third point, “Read the Bible in the Church.”

Jordan often says very striking things and leaves you to chew on things. One of the things that he noted from Romans 1 is that “people are crazy” – professing to be wise, they became fools, because they suppressed the truth in unrighteousness and failed to respond to God’s revelation with pistis (faith, faithfulness). He also noted that Jesus is the alpha and omega - i.e. the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. And he stressed that we must let the Bible teach us how to read itself. We learn to read the Bible, not by approaching it with a set of autonomous rules, but by reading it over and over again. (Rules are spectacles, paradigm-providers. If Scripture does not provide these spectacles, our reading is in fact tending to stand over it, rather than in submission to it.)

Putting all of this together, it strikes me that what we’re really talking about is learning a new language. Jesus is the Word of God by whom all things were made and are sustained; He is the divine language, and in the Scriptures the Holy Spirit speaks Him.

When you have a baby and start to talk to him or her, the sounds you make are not very significant to that child. The slate is too blank; the child has not yet been enculturated into the language you’re speaking.

In our case, as we’ve noted, we are crazy. We’re not merely dealing with a blank slate; we’re unlearning all sorts of things that we “know” which in fact are not true.

But in both cases, it is constant exposure to the language by which the child or disciple is taught the language. (more…)