ΚΑΤΑΓΡΑΦΑΙΣ

Nope, not mine. Eric (of Archaic Christianity) and Ragen host the new Archaic Christianity podcast. Their introductory episode features an introduction to the podcast, part 1 of a discussion on wisdom Christology, the Didache, and more.

You can check it out here.
Read the blog here.

Sojourn Community Church has been plowing through the book of Romans all this year, and, as luck (??) would have it, we just finished chapter 12 and are about to move into chapter 13. Just in time for the national election… hmm…

I’m really excited as to what they are going to say, because Pastor Daniel Montgomery has promised to “pick a fight” with all of us. The Church, if I remember my demographics correctly, runs about 50/50 Democrat and Republican- so that’s a whole lot of fights to pick. Here is a part of the blurb posted on the church’s site:

“Our call as Christians is to live in the tension between political apathy and political idolatry. As we turn to God’s word, we come to Romans 13, Paul’s message to Christians under the reign of Christ and also under the earthly authority of government. How do we live under seemingly contradicting authorities? We hope you’ll join us as we investigate how our new identity in Christ as his church informs and transforms our relationship to politics.”

You can read the whole thing here. If you’re at all interested in this, you can also be watching the resources page for audio and video of the sermons after they are given.

As most commentators have pointed out, Paul seems to make an allusion in 2 Corinthians 5:12c to 1 Samuel 16:7. As I am translating this section, I bring this up only to take a look of the use of idioms.

The verse in English is:
“So that you might have an answer against those who take pride in appearances and not in what is in the heart.”

Here is the Greek:
ἵνα ἔχητε πρὸς τοὺς ἐν προσώπῳ καυχωμένους καὶ μὴ ἐν καρδίᾳ.
Read the rest of this entry »

Paul Newman, who starred in many great movies including one of my favorites, Cool Hand Luke, died yesterday. Let’s go eat some eggs in mourning…

I know everyone missed their dose of Hebrew vocabulary last week. I wasn’t able to get around to it with the power loss. There is good news, though, fellow dead-language learners! Hebrew vocab is back again! Here are the words!
Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Spencer has a great blog post on “The Missing Voice of the Christian Counter-Culture.” Check it out.

I decided that since my blogging has gone down the past few months, I should let you guys in on what I’m immersing myself with instead of being online.
Read the rest of this entry »

What else is new?

I was able to pick up a new book today that I’m really excited to get the chance to read. The book is Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. The books is put out by Re:Lit/Crossway and clocks in around 207 pgs. Here is the Table of Contents and Publisher Description:
Read the rest of this entry »

After 6 trustworthy years, my monitor on my desktop has given up the ghost. Thankfully (and even maybe providentially?) I was able to buy a new laptop about a month or two ago- so there is no worries on finishing any papers. I’m relatively sure that it is only my monitor that went bad for various diagnostic reasons, but I am in no hurry to buy a new one since all I need is on my laptop. That being said, I cleared off my desk and put everything away in the closet for the time being, and I am now using the desk for my laptop. It looked quite empty with just a laptop on it, so I moved all my books for my paper on 2 Corinthians 5 on there- not because I’m really productive, but because it makes me feel better to look productive. Here is a shot of the new scenery:
Read the rest of this entry »

As I was working on a bit more of my paper on 2 Corinthians 5:1-10, I was contemplating on what Paul is saying in verses 6-8, and verse 8 in particular. Essentially, in these verses, Paul’s degrees of preference surface: Paul would much rather live to see the parousia of Christ as opposed to the disembodied state (vv 2-3), but he would also prefer to be in the presence of Christ in a disembodied state than to be “at home in the body” (vv 6-8). This, of course, makes sense. This is not a hatred of life on Paul’s part, as we can tell from the first part of the letter which gives thanks to God for sparing his life, but a heart-felt yearning of wanting to be with Christ- whatever that may entail. This got me thinking about death and the Christian response.
Read the rest of this entry »