Excursions in Covenant Eschatology

How do you pronounce Κοινή? Like most English-speakers who learn Koine Greek, I learned Erasmian pronunciation , the standard academic method for non-Greeks since, well, Erasmus of Rotterdam produced his Novum Instrumentum omne in 1516; and judging from this post on the Logos Bible software blog, "Academic," it will remain so for a long time to come.

Star Wars and Greek? How could I resist posting it?

A display of Greek Geek cred Update 17/11/15 Well, I feel a bit of a fool... In an email conversation, the author of the book below, Dr. James Grimshaw , associate professor of history, politics, and religious studies at Wisconsin's Carroll University , pointed out that his book was one of a series the publisher had put together; so the cover wasn't unique to his book. Of course; a series. The "Studies in Biblical Literature" series as mentioned right on the cover! I guess I couldn't see the English forest for the Greek trees. I'm not only a Greek Geek; I'm blind, too. Oh well, I still enjoyed tracking down the text and highlighting it. Oh, and three cheers for Dr. Grimshaw for taking the time to hit me hard with the clue bat!

An Exegetical Essay on 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 The Apostle Paul wrote his “first” letter to an astonishingly depraved Corinthian church rife with syncretistic factionalism (1:12, 3:4), sexual immorality (5:1) and shameless self-promotion (5:2, 6). Whether dragging their internecine disputes before the gentile magistrates of the public courts (6:1-8) or conducting themselves deplorably at the Lord’s Supper (11:17-22), inside and outside the church, the Corinthians continually debased the name of Christ and shamed the Family of God. In anticipation of his imminent arrival (4:19), Paul’s epistle puts the whole church on notice by unflinchingly detailing every unseemly issue and unchristian practice he intends to correct when he gets there.

A Brief Sketch of William Tyndale William Tyndale From its earliest days, the Church has relied on the act of translation to pass on and preserve the Word of God. From the insular Semitic consonants of the Lord’s Apostles, the Gospel of Jesus Christ was reworked into the transnational dialects of the Greek Koine and spread to God’s people beyond Judea. It later moved into the imperial majuscules of the Holy Roman Latin of Western Europe, where it stayed, a prisoner of a calcified ecclesiology, until the Protestant Reformation twelve-hundred years later. In Great Britain, it was the reformer and gifted linguist William Tyndale (c.1492-1536) who, in translating the New Testament directly from Greek to English, liberated it from the Latin fetters of the clerics and made it available to even the ploughboys of England.

New Worlds, New Challenges and New Churches "Crystal Palace" The nineteenth century gave no respite to a traditional Christianity still reeling from the social upheavals of the 1700s. After such seismic shocks as the Enlightenment, the French and American Revolutions, the rationalism of Leibniz and Kant, and the first of the Great Awakenings, the traditional churches of Europe and America tumbled into the uncertainties of modernity off-balance, unsure and, for the most part, unprepared. All the consequences of the movements begun in the previous century would be visited upon the Church throughout the modern era. Change was definitely in the air and the social, political and spiritual landscapes of Europe and America would be altered forever.

Last assignment submitted on Moodle It's all downhill from here. This time last year, I posted about having just submitted my final assignment for the second semester of the first year of my Bachelor of Theology (BTh) degree at Laidlaw College . Well, yesterday I just submitted my final assignment for the second semester of my second year. Yippee, another year over!

An Exegetical Essay on Luke 7:36-50 A Sinful Woman Forgiven In the anointing pericope of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 7:36-50), Jesus is attended to by a weeping "woman...who was a sinner" (37), while dining at Simon the Pharisee’s house. Through an analogic parable about two debtors (Luke 7:41-42), Jesus does three things: First, he confirms that he is the Messiah, then he teaches a lesson on God’s counter-intuitive mercy and, thirdly, he illustrates the equality of sinners before God, regardless of their visible inequality. A great deal of interpretation of this passage has understandably focussed on the woman, emphasising her importance in determining Luke’s message. However, as we shall see below, Simon the Pharisee plays a far more pivotal role than is generally believed.

Phil Johnson puts up a reasonable case for Ceasationism I'm encountering a fair bit of sub-biblical nonsense these days at Laidlaw College and feel the need to push-back, even if it is only here on Blogger. The vid below is a cogent and succinct argument for Ceasationism by Phil Johnson of Grace to You , John MacArthur's Empire:

Calling all Church History buffs who are addicted to YouTube! If you’re like me and spend an inordinate amount of your free time on YouTube AND you can’t get enough of Early Church history, then my latest Facebook post is for you. Although the video is primarily about the Apostolic Fathers, there's also a particularly good section on the Didache in it; it's worth watching the whole thing just for that bit.

Traditional Christian marriage owes more to Rome than Jerusalem. As a Christian in the developed world it is nearly impossible to avoid the debate raging in the public arena between the proponents of gay marriage and those who cherish its traditional form. Now, I have no intention of joining the fray with this post, but I would like to take a look at one feature of the argument of those Christians who are promoting the traditional view of marriage. Whenever I hear them present their case, I’m always left wondering whether they are aware of the actual history of the traditional form of marriage that they so vehemently defend.

What to do when many of your early textual witnesses omit the addressee in an epistle? Codex Alexandrianus As with most of the books of the New Testament, there are several critical issues regarding the book of Ephesians that have been debated by scholars for centuries. These are mainly questions pertaining to the dating and setting of the autograph (when and where was it written?), its authorship (by whom was it written?), and its recipient (for whom was it written?). With regards to the latter question, would it surprise you to learn that there is no absolute proof that the epistle to the Ephesians was written to the Church in Ephesus?

What is it about Christmas that makes the media pull out their duller, rustier knives? Last week I detected a stirring in the Christian blogosphere. Some article I never would’ve noticed, in a magazine I never read, written by a journalist I’d never heard of, had rattled a chain or two. I was shocked, shocked , to discover that the mainstream media in the U.S. dislikes us hate-filled Christians and our big, black book of lying lies for liars.