Do you remember the story in Genesis 19 of the family of the righteous man Lot who lives in the wicked city of Sodom? Angels visit, as the evening draws down, coming to Lot in the gate of the city and finding hospitality in his home. In the night the…
When you really get down to it, the most basic practical problem of blessing is one that gnaws miserably at the heart of all ethical action: does it really lies in our power to do good?One of the advantages of thinking our way into ethical relations by following the…
The problem with blessing is, above all, a practical one. It’s about living in a particular kind of relationship with the world into which I’ve been thrown. Well, ‘world’ is a bit abstract. No one ever has a relationship with ‘the world’. Let’s say ‘neighbourhood’ and mean…
It’s hard to define ‘Blessing’. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this as well. It troubles me. On my better days, it feels like the kind of thing I’d very much like to do: put my hand on someone and bless them. > By faith Isaac blessed…
I’m reading through Ezekiel at the moment in parallel with a series we’re doing at our church. I’ve taken Robert Jenson’s commentary on Ezekiel in the Brazos series along for the ride (I picked it up for $5 at Koorong). I’ve been working through his…
[http://papermind.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/spoken-word_unl5h5.jpg]I got distracted in the last post… It’s hard not too with so many different voices demanding to be heard. The image of the mechanically inspired prophet (ear-cocked, stylus at the ready, listening for the whispers from the beyond)…
[http://papermind.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/fra-angelico1_mrp22c.jpg]For any Old Testament passage a crucial interpretive context is that surrounding the advent of Jesus. This has two dimensions, it involves understanding both how the people who were reading the OT and calling on God to be faithful to…
[http://papermind.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/tumblr_ll4wmdtlmh1qghk7bo1_500_bbaoa5.jpg] The first application of any Old Testament passage is the one that the original author/speaker intended for the original readers/listeners. Each passage of the Old Testament called for a response from the people for whom it…