Book Review: First Corinthians by Joseph Fitzmyer

Special thanks to Robert of Yale University Press for a review copy of this book. Joseph Fitzmyer has long been one of the most well known Roman Catholic Bible scholars, writing on subjects ranging from the Dead Sea Scrolls to a few highly regarded commentaries in the Anchor Series (Luke, Acts, Romans, and Philemon).  Added [...]

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Possessions & Power: A Lesson from Basil the Great

One of my favorite stories from studying church history involves Basil the Great, the 4th century bishop of Caesarea and one of the Cappadocians Fathers.  Basil is also considered the father of Eastern monasticism, who lived in relative poverty (especially given his lofty position) in order to help the poor. Basil was also a widely [...]

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Bible Translations, Marketing & Bible Sales

Wayne Leman over at the Better Bibles Blog (my proposed subtitle- Making Good Translations Even Gooder, and I will continue to make this joke until they make it official) cites someone who cites the latest figures in Bible sales.  The original poster (meaning “one who posted” rather than something you hang on your wall) and [...]

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Noah & Asia Minor in 1 Peter 3

1 Peter 3:18-22 is one of the most confusing passages in the entire Bible.  Check that, it’s probably the most confusing.  I wrote a paper on it in my undergrad days and I’m still confused.  While I believe it’s good to research difficult passages in the Bible and try your best to come to a [...]

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Outlining 1 Peter

This post is a practice run at giving a descriptive outline for 1 Peter.  This isn’t an analysis of the grammatical structure or a Semantic Structure Analysis, though I hope I’m not ignoring them.  It’s a simple attempt to understand the flow of 1 Peter and how the parts interrelate.  I stress this is a [...]

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Page CXVI Hymns

It seems like I’m under contractual obligation to let you know whenever cheap/free hymns are available.  So, with that in mind, let me recommend 7 free hymns from Page CXVI Hymns.  I’ll be honest, I don’t know anything about them (found them at Between Two Worlds), and I don’t think this will be available for [...]

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Resources for 1 Peter

We’ve begun a new unit in our training school, moving on to the NT Epistles, focusing on 1 Peter.  In the class we use Fee & Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth as our base text (along with its companion volume, How to Read the Bible Book by Book), which has [...]

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Jobes on 1 Peter & Suffering

Even those Christians who do not suffer persecution for the faith are called to the suffering of self-denial.  Sin is often thought of as being motivated by the temptation for pleasure.  But perhaps the real power of sin lies in the avoidance of pain and suffering.  It is better to suffer unfulfilled needs and desires [...]

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Ancient Christianity & Modern Missions

Coming off the reposting of my review of Thomas Oden’s book, How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, I was thinking about some of the implications studying early African Christianity would have for modern missions.  As one who works for a missions organization and helps train future missionaries, I’m constantly looking to draw out practical application [...]

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Book Review: How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind

Note: this book review originally appeared on my old blog on 8/13/08. Thanks to Adrianna of IVP for a review copy of this book. It is still a prevalent but hopefully decreasingly common (thanks to the efforts of scholars such as Phillip Jenkins) view that Christianity is a “Western” (American or European) religion. Whereas Jenkins [...]

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