Courtney Reissig on the Psalms (and Emotions)

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (January 2026) it’s Teach Me to Feel: Worshiping Though the Psalms in Every Season of Life by Courtney Reissig – meditations on 24 selected psalms, looking at emotions ranging from shame, anxiety, and anger through to gratitude, hope, and joy. The book is available in exchange for an email address here.

Themelios 48, 2 (August 2023)

The latest Themelios is online here (and available here as a single pdf), containing the below articles.

Editorial

Brian J. Tabb

On Disagreements in Ministry

Strange Times

Daniel Strange

It’s Not Rocket Science… Even If It Is

Ian J. Vaillancourt

Reading Psalm Superscriptions through the Centuries

This article seeks to retrieve from the past in order to gain perspective for the present. It begins by surveying the manuscripts of the MT Psalter, the LXX Psalter, and 11QPsa from the DSS, reporting on the unique aspects of the psalm superscriptions in each of these text traditions. The heart of the article then surveys the way five key questions about superscriptions have been answered by prominent interpreters in the patristic, medieval, reformation, higher critical, and more recent periods. It concludes with some lessons drawn from its survey of history as a vehicle for suggesting a way forward for the present day.

T.F. Leong

Ecclesiastes in Context: Reclaiming Qoheleth’s Canonical Authority

The book of Ecclesiastes is essentially a speech. Its profound message is needed today more than ever. Yet much recent Evangelical scholarship has accepted and assumed critical views of Qoheleth the speaker and his speech. This renders almost the entire book practically useless to Bible teachers and preachers. This article presents the teaching of Ecclesiastes on the meaning of life in the contexts of its ancient and the modern world. Its uncanny superiority over its ancient and modern counterparts corroborates the book’s own claim that Qoheleth’s speech is inspired by God and thus canonically authoritative for teaching and preaching.

Charles Cleworth

The Characterization of Peter and the Message of Acts

The growing trend of utilizing narrative criticism to interpret the New Testament, including the tools of character studies, has led to an increased focus upon the on the way Luke develops Peter’s character in the book of Acts. Less attention, however, has been given to understanding how different accounts of the characterization of Peter in Acts impinge upon and contribute to the overall message of the book. This more recent focus on Peter’s development has led to a skewed analysis of his presentation in Acts, and, as a corollary, has obscured the way in which Peter’s characterization contributes to the message of Acts, which is ultimately about the movement of the gospel to the ends of the earth.

William B. Bowes

Uprisings and Mob Violence in Acts and in the First Century

Acts of the Apostles reports several uprisings and instances of mob violence that occur across Asia Minor, caused by or related to the evangelistic and missionary endeavors of Paul and his companions in the middle of the first century. While the historicity of the events recorded in Acts is an issue of perennial dispute, the disturbances associated with the expansion of the Christian message are presented by the author as historical events. Consequently, a closer and more detailed examination of the major uprisings throughout the text is in order. This article begins with an analysis of extrabiblical records of mob violence and uprisings in the first-century Roman Empire, and then moves to an analysis of five episodes of mob violence recorded in Acts for the purpose of comparing the way that uprisings during the early Imperial period were recorded. The discussion concludes by arguing that Acts reports these events in a manner consistent with the way that other uprisings during this time were reported, and the details in Acts match the social and cultural context of the areas described. As a result, readers should consider the accounts in Acts to have a higher degree of historical reliability.

Scott MacDonald

Modern Healing Cloths and Acts 19:11–12

Christian groups and leaders around the world commission cloths to heal the sick, often claiming Acts 19:11–12 as a foundational text for the practice. After an overview of some examples, this paper analyzes the unusual events of Ephesus in Acts and reflects on the identity of the cloths. This investigation reveals the stark contrast between Paul’s ministry in Ephesus and the modern practice of healing cloths. Instead of inaugurating a normal healing device for Christianity, God uses the miracles and Paul’s public ministry to lead the Ephesians away from magical practices. While God can do as he sees fit, Christian groups and leaders should avoid seeking to manipulate and control the power of God like the sons of Sceva (Acts 19:13–20).

Andreas-Christian Heidel

The Agonistic Imagery of the New Testament and the Paradox of the Cross

Early Christians had to develop and negotiate their (new) identity within a society, to which their beliefs and ethical convictions were largely alien. These beliefs were rooted in the Christ event, especially in the understanding of Jesus’s death on the cross as an event of salvation, both individually and collectively. However, the cross contradicted the values of their Greco-Roman environment, and New Testament authors used various imageries to express this tension. This contribution traces this relationship by looking at the usage of agonistic imagery in New Testament writings: Sports metaphors are used by taking up their triumphalist character but at the same time transforming it with a contradicting ethos of defeat that expresses a new kind of paradox identity, both individually and collectively.

Jared Compton

The Function of Divine Christology in Hebrews: Critical Reflections on a Recent Proposal

The recent “theological turn” in biblical studies sparked fresh, creative interest in Hebrews’ Christology. The latest entry in the field, Nick Brennan’s carefully argued Divine Christology in the Epistle to the Hebrews, advances the conversation and, at the same time, illustrates a danger attending the larger project of theological retrieval. This essay explores Brennan’s thesis, commending his theological instincts, while cautioning against his specific conclusions. Readers must account for Hebrews’ theology but never at the expense of the letter’s explicit argument.

David Haines

Thomas Aquinas on Total Depravity and the Noetic Effects of Sin

One of the most common critiques of Thomas Aquinas to be found in contemporary Protestant theology and apologetics is that Aquinas either outright denies the noetic effects of sin, or, at very least, minimizes the noetic effects of sin. Examples can be found in the writings of Dooyeweerd, Schaeffer, and Oliphint. This article provides a much-needed corrective to these all-too-common and perpetually promoted misinterpretations of Aquinas by showing that Aquinas thinks that human nature in its entirety (both intellect and will) is affected by sin. Protestant theologians can adopt his approach without sacrificing Protestant particulars.

Ed Wright

Live and Let Spy? Thomas Aquinas and the Basis for Christian Engagement in Intelligence Work

This article presents a framework for Christian engagement in government intelligence work, evaluating how the theology of Thomas Aquinas can inform such involvement. The article explores how to retrieve medieval theological resources for a distinctively modern issue. Four central pillars of Aquinas’s thought build a basis for Christian engagement in this field, and Aquinas’s understanding of both just war and deception are examined because of their importance to the complexities of intelligence operations. The article concludes by adumbrating a seven-point model for use by pastors and churches where its members may be employed by government intelligence agencies.

Melvin L. Otey

What Christians Need to Know About “Legalized” Marijuana

As states continue to decriminalize marijuana and usage escalates in American culture, Christians must increasingly navigate their associations with the drug. The various implications of marijuana use are much discussed, but the true legal landscape is often misunderstood. Despite recent changes in individual state laws, it is still a federal crime to possess, use, or sell the drug anywhere in the United States. This article argues that—aside from unrelated social, medical, ethical, and spiritual considerations—Christians must abstain from either medical or recreational marijuana use because they are obliged as a matter of faith to obey federal authorities.

Josh Rothschild

Technology and Its Fruits: Digital Technology’s Imago Dei Deformation and Sabbath as Re-Formation Josh Rothschild

The serpent promised that the fruit in the garden would make Adam and Eve more like God. While the fruit reduced the capability gap between God and humanity, it widened the character gap. This article aims to demonstrate that digital technology parallels the fruit in both its promise to grant us God-like abilities while also deforming God’s character in us. I use current psychological and sociological research to demonstrate that high digital technology use steadily deforms God’s character in humanity. I conclude by suggesting that weekly Sabbath practice counters this deforming technological pressure and creates space for God to re-form his image in us.

Book Reviews

Christopher Ash on the Psalms

Every month, The Good Book Company make available digital versions of one of their books at no charge. This month (September 2022) it’s Psalms For You by Christopher Ash, which is available in exchange for an email address here.

Journal of the Evangelical Homiletics Society 22, 1 (March 2022)

The latest issue of the Journal of the Evangelical Homiletics Society has been posted online with the below articles (with the first few paragraphs of the pieces, or abstracts where available). The individual essays are available from here, and the issue as a whole is available as a pdf here.

Scott M. Gibson

Preaching Plus

There might be variations of homiletical math. In my teaching of Haddon Robinson’s philosophy of preaching I instruct my students that to get the idea of a passage one uses the following homiletical math formula: S + C = I. That is, subject question plus the complement answer equals the exegetical idea. But it strikes me that we can apply homiletical math to other areas of preaching. We could call this formula “preaching plus.” That is, preaching can be considered as an addition to a given area of study. For example, preaching plus history directs us to discover how and if preaching has had an impact in historical development in any culture or context. Preaching plus psychology may help us to discover how preaching intersects with the field of psychology. Further examples may come to your mind. But the point here is to help us to see that the intersection of preaching with other fields and situations or contexts is far-reaching.

Scott M. Gibson and Gregory K. Hollifield

Wanted: Catfish for Our Think Tank

What is needed are holy healthy places for thinking, interaction, and engagement without intellectual prejudice or divisiveness. We need think tanks more than we need labs. Our Evangelical Homiletics Society is not so much a lab as it is a think tank. A think tank consists of a body of experts who share ideas and advice to advance a chosen field of research and application. Unlike medical labs, think tanks are messy places. Not all ideas gain traction there. Advice can come off as criticism. Sacred cows get slaughtered. Presuppositions are called into question. Novelty is neither embraced for novelty’s sake nor rejected on the same grounds. Catfish swim freely in healthy think tanks. By their presence, resistance, and “convince me” attitudes, they keep their colleagues’ minds from growing soft and mushy.

Matthew D. Kim

Preaching to People in Pain

For this conference, Jesse Nelson asked me to speak about a new publication, Preaching to People in Pain. This book released in May of 2021 with Baker Academic. It’s a book that has long been on my heart as someone who has pastored people who are broken and hurting. How many of you have broken and hurting people in your churches today? I can assure you that all of us do. I remember pitching the book idea to Baker initially proposing the title of Pain-Full Preaching: Sharing Our Suffering in Sermons. For whatever reason, the marketing team relayed back that Pain-Full Preaching may not sell so why don’t we title it Preaching to People in Pain: How Suffering Can Shape Your Sermons and Connect with Your Congregation. Steve Norman is a pastor who has been writing thoughtfully about preaching. In his new book, The Preacher as Sermon, published by Preaching Today, he shares a mantra for his ministry which is this: “Never underestimate the pain in the room.” This evening I don’t want to underestimate your pain or the possible pains that you’ve been going through over the past two years or more. They’ve been a very difficult two years for many of us. Ministry has not looked the same for any of us.

Ken Langley

Preaching Hope and Lament from the Psalms

“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast with in me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan . . . Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me” (Psalm 42:5-7). Hope and lament. Usually, the order is reversed, as in Psalm 130: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD,” verse 1. Verse 7: “O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.” Lament and hope. In psalm after psalm we find this pattern: the petitioner begins: “How many are my foes! How long will you hide your face from me? Why do you stand afar off? God, I don’t understand, I don’t like, and I’m not about to acquiesce to this current state of illness, distress, injustice, persecution, danger, loss. But—(so much Gospel in that little word!)—I trust you. I know you are faithful to your promises. I wait in hope for the LORD, he is my help and shield. I am confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Be strong and take heart all you who hope in the LORD. Lament and hope.

Ezekiel Ajibade

The Culture of Note-Taking and Effective Sermonic Technique

Sermon note-taking has long been practiced in various “church cultures,” and some may wonder about the future of the practice. Challenges to note-taking include secondary orality, the emergence of the digitoral generation, and the technologization of the world. This paper, engages with homiletics, systematic theology, communication studies, and discipleship studies to demonstrate the relevance of note-taking for enhancing listener engagement during the sermon. First, ,this paper will suggest a biblical and theological premise for note-taking. Second, it will investigate the relationship of note-taking to good listening and journaling. Third, it will describe methods of effective note-taking for both oral and digitoral sermon hearers. Fourth, it will discuss the criticism that note-taking is a distraction to the listeners. This paper will show that note-taking is still practiced by church-goers, and that while it should be encouraged, it should not be forced on worshippers in any way.

Jesse Nelson

Sermon: The Christian’s Hope

Book Reviews

Safe Hands

I wrote this week’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC). I originally wrote it a version of it for my own church community, coinciding with the anniversary of the first national lockdown in the UK, but it was ‘repurposed’ for this short series of reflections which ties in with the release of a set of Bible studies by members of the LICC team, to which I contributed, on some of David’s psalms – Worshipping the God of All in All of Life – published for Spring Harvest 2021.

In you, LORD, I have taken refuge;

let me never be put to shame;

deliver me in your righteousness…

Love the LORD, all his faithful people!

The LORD preserves those who are true to him,

but the proud he pays back in full.

Be strong and take heart,

all you who hope in the LORD.

Psalm 31:1, 23–24

‘My times are in your hands’, declares David. And for decades, David’s times were fraught with life-threatening danger. In 53 of his 75 psalms he mentions enemies. Time and again David turns to God. Time and again God is there for him. In this psalm he prays, ‘Into your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, LORD, my faithful God’ (Psalm 31:5). As the greater King, Jesus also prayed this prayer as he hung on the cross (Luke 23:46), committing himself into his Father’s hands.

But this isn’t just for David, or for Jesus. It’s for us, too.

‘Into your hands, Lord…’

It’s the prayer I felt compelled to pray last week, on the anniversary of our first national lockdown, designated as a ‘day of national reflection’ here in the UK.

I wonder, what did the anniversary bring to mind?

Perhaps it was queuing outside the supermarket only to find the shelves empty on the inside. Perhaps it was trying to capture the last time you saw your elderly parent, just in case. Perhaps it was the cancellation of planned celebrations or exams. Perhaps it was that as lockdowns ended and started again, with all the resulting uncertainty, you began to know more people who were impacted, and some of those closest to you were at the sharpest end of that pointy stick.

‘Into your hands, Lord…’

Or, perhaps you remember that you and your neighbours were suddenly so much more, well, neighbourly. Perhaps it was the rainbows in windows, which rightly applauded our frontline workers but also reminded us of the promises of God’s faithfulness embedded in Scripture as well as in nature. Perhaps you enjoyed the glorious Spring of last year, got out more, and rested more than you’ve done for ages.

‘Into your hands, Lord…’

Not just a prayer for kings, but a prayer for us.

The key is in the final two verses of the psalm in which David addresses God’s people. As those who’ve been on the receiving end of God’s love, he calls us to love and trust God, and wait for him in hope: ‘Love the LORD, all his faithful people! The LORD preserves those who are true to him... Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.’

Those hands that have kept us so far will keep us still. They are the safest hands of all.

Currents in Biblical Research 19, 2 (February 2021)

The latest Currents in Biblical Research recently arrived, with titles and abstracts of the main articles as below.

Brad E. Kelle

Moral Injury and Biblical Studies: An Early Sampling of Research and Emerging Trends

Moral injury emerged within clinical psychology and related fields to refer to a non-physical wound (psychological and emotional pain and its effects) that results from the violation (by oneself or others) of a person’s deepest moral beliefs (about oneself, others, or the world). Originally conceived in the context of warfare, the notion has now expanded to include the morally damaging impact of various non-war-related experiences and circumstances. Since its inception, moral injury has been an intersectional and cross-disciplinary term and significant work has appeared in psychology, philosophy, medicine, spiritual/pastoral care, chaplaincy, and theology. Since 2015, biblical scholarship has engaged moral injury along two primary trajectories: 1) creative re-readings of biblical stories and characters informed by insights from moral injury; and 2) explorations of the postwar rituals and symbolic practices found in biblical texts and how they might connect to the felt needs of morally injured persons. These trajectories suggest that the engagement between the Bible and moral injury generates a two-way conversation in which moral injury can serve as a heuristic that brings new meanings out of biblical texts, and the critical study of biblical texts can contribute to the attempts to understand, identify, and heal moral injury.

Gert T.M. Prinsloo

Reading the Masoretic Psalter as a Book: Editorial Trends and Redactional Trajectories

The publication of Gerald H. Wilson’s The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter in 1985 marked a distinct shift in approaches to Psalms research. This article reviews this shift from psalm to Psalter exegesis. North American scholarship tends to follow a synchronic approach and to describe the shape of the Psalter. German scholarship tends to use a diachronic perspective and trace the shaping of the Psalter to explain how it attained its final form. There are growing signs of dialogue and convergence between these two main approaches to the editing of the Hebrew Psalter, which overshadow form-critical and liturgical approaches to the editing of the Psalter. Adherents of the shape and the shaping approach tend to propose a specific theme, organizational principle, or redactional intent to explain the Psalter’s final form. The multi-faceted nature of the Psalter and its long and complex history imply that, in spite of a multitude of publications, the last word on editorial trends and redactional trajectories has not been spoken.

Timothy A. Gabrielson

Parting Ways or Rival Siblings? A Review and Analysis of Metaphors for the Separation of Jews and Christians in Antiquity

Since the early 1990s, ‘the parting of the ways’ has become academic shorthand, especially in anglophone scholarship, for the separation of Jews and Christians in antiquity. Often it is associated with a onetime, global break that occurred by the end of the second century, particularly over one or more theological issues. This model has been challenged as being too tidy. Other images have been offered, most notably that of ‘rival siblings’, but the ‘parting’ model remains supreme. Consensus has shifted in other ways, however. The ‘parting’, or better, ‘partings’, is now understood to be a localized, protracted, and multifaceted process that likely began in the second century and continued into or past the fourth century. It is also suggested here that the current debate covers five distinguishable topics: (1) mutual religious recognition, (2) the continued existence of ‘Jewish Christians’, (3) religious interaction, (4) social concourse, and (5) outsider classification.

On Learning to Lament

The below is an excerpt from an email written for the congregation where I am one of the pastors.

How could God allow that to happen? If God is good, why is there so much suffering in the world? Why doesn’t he just fix everything?

Perhaps you’ve been asked questions like those. Perhaps you’ve asked them yourself, possibly even over the last few weeks.

How we respond depends, at least in part, on whether the questions are being asked from the perspective of an ‘armchair’ or a ‘wheelchair’. In some cases, the issue of suffering is little more than an intellectual challenge to the existence of God, and is asked from the relative comfort of a conversation between friends or in a radio phone-in discussion. In other cases, the questions are heartfelt cries from those who are themselves in agony, broken, and completely bewildered with the misery of pain, evil, and injustice in a messed-up world.

The contrast between philosophical and personal engagements with suffering can be seen in the writings of C.S. Lewis. As a university don, he wrote a book called The Problem of Pain, in which he argues from a theological and philosophical perspective that human pain, animal pain, and hell are not sufficient reasons to reject belief in a loving and all-powerful God. But, as a devoted husband, he wrote a book called A Grief Observed, reflecting on his experience of bereavement following the death of his wife from cancer. Which book is more helpful? Which is more truthful? Which is more authentic? Both, at different times of life? Each in its own way?

It’s in the pain of bereavement that Lewis writes: ‘Meanwhile, where is God? ... Go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.’

Some of us might be able to relate to that. Certainly the psalmists could.

Would it surprise you to learn that laments are the largest category of prayers in the book of Psalms? Take a moment to reflect on that: what might it mean that the Holy Spirit has so overseen the writing of Scripture such that over a third of the Psalms bring a troubled situation to the Lord – not in a cold, detached way but from a place of deep agony? What does that say about our own expectations of the way things should go? How are such prayers to shape our own prayer life?

In every case, these psalms allow an honest response to God in prayer from the depths of the broken hearts of his hurting people, even to ask those challenging questions: Where are you, Lord? How long, Lord? They provide a way to pray through a period of crisis, grief, or despair. They give us the words to express our brokenness, our need, our longing for justice. Most importantly of all – and contrary to what we might think at first – they demonstrate trust in God, because they’re addressed to the only one who really does hold all things in his hands.

Currents in Biblical Research 18, 2 (February 2020)

The latest Currents in Biblical Research recently arrived, with titles and abstracts of the main articles as below.

Joshua T. James

Research Trends in the Study of the Ethics of the Psalms

The study of the ethics of the Psalms is a relative newcomer in the field of Old Testament ethics, having garnered most of its interest following Wenham’s initial essay on the subject in 2005. In hindsight, the neglect of the Psalms is surprising given its overt ethical concerns, but throughout the early phase of the re-emergence of Old Testament ethics (from 1983 to the end of the twentieth century), it was indeed woefully overlooked. The goal of this article is to provide a survey of work on the subject. Because the content and themes of these studies are still somewhat limited, the article is arranged according to the interpretive methodology or hermeneutical framework guiding the various authors’ contributions. In addition to surveying the field, this approach allows for the dominant trends to be observed and set within their proper context.

Tammi J. Schneider

In the Beginning and Still Today: Recent Publications on Genesis

This article reviews the monographs and edited volumes on the book of Genesis published since 2015. As a means of organizing the material, the books reviewed are categorized into groupings that reflect different aspects of the study of Genesis as a book, as well as the field of biblical studies and its placement within the humanities writ large. The organizational process leads to examining who writes about Genesis, the perceived audience, and how publishers consider their task and role in the process of disseminating scholarship on the book. An apparent shift in biblical studies, or at least in research on the book of Genesis, is identified towards situating the material more into world history and contemporary issues than into the historical-critical method.

T.M. Lemos

Order from Chaos: Comparing Approaches to Violence in Anthropology, Assyriology, and the Study of the Hebrew Bible

This article compares the history of scholarship on violence in anthropology in the past one hundred years to major approaches to studying violence in the ancient Near East and ancient Near Eastern sources, including ancient Israel and Israelite literature. The article demonstrates that anthropology and ancient Near Eastern studies have diverged widely in their approaches to violence. In the past two to three decades, the concept of structural violence and new materialist approaches have dominated the study of violence in anthropology, while in Assyriology and the study of ancient Israel/Israelite literature, studies of violence have repeatedly turned to an order and chaos framework. The article ends by suggesting that scholars of ancient West Asia incorporate new materialist approaches more concertedly in studies of violence and either rethink or jettison the simplistic order/chaos dyad.

Matthew W. Bates

The External-Relational Shift in Faith (Pistis) in New Testament Research: Romans 1 as Gospel-Allegiance Test Case

Evidence is marshalled for a recent ‘external-relational shift’ in scholarly understandings of pistis (traditionally translated ‘faith’) among New Testament scholars and historians of early Christianity and its social world. There is a movement away from predominantly personal existential accounts of pistis toward those that are relational and outwardly manifest. ‘Faith’ (pistis) is predominantly a way of life characterized by fidelity or loyalty which is outwardly expressed in relationships. Beyond the New Perspective on Paul, which is an obvious factor, four streams are feeding this shift: (1) the pistis Christou debate, (2) increased appreciation of ancient social and cultural norms, (3) advances in linguistics, and (4) an emphasis on the gospel as a royal proclamation. To show why the external-relational shift matters theologically, Paul’s use of pistis in Romans 1 is explored along external-relational lines.

Themelios 44, 3 (December 2019)

The latest Themelios is online here (and available here as a single pdf), containing the below articles.

Editorial

D.A. Carson

But That’s Just Your Interpretation!

Strange Times

Daniel Strange

Remembering a Principal’s Principles

Robert S. Smith

Cultural Marxism: Imaginary Conspiracy or Revolutionary Reality?

What are we to make of Cultural Marxism? This article seeks to answer that question, first, by outlining the key elements and legacy of classical Marxism; second, by exploring the neo-Marxism of Antonio Gramsci; third, by assessing the main ideas and impact of “the Frankfurt School”; and, fourth, by offering some reflections on (i) the links between these thinkers and various contemporary developments, (ii) the wisdom of employing the term Cultural Marxism, and (iii) how Christians should respond to the current “culture wars” that are polarizing the Western world.

Hans Madueme

Adam and Sin as the Bane of Evolution? A Review of Finding Ourselves After Darwin

The diverse essays in Stanley Rosenberg’s edited volume Finding Ourselves After Darwin: Conversations on the Image of God, Original Sin, and the Problem of Evil (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018) offer a Christian analysis of the human person in light of evolutionary thinking. The recommendations to revise our understanding of original sin and theodicy raise particularly challenging questions. Traditional interpretations of Scripture, for instance, are often devalued in order to reduce tensions with our current scientific understanding. Additionally, the more radical arguments undercut doctrines that earlier Christians believed are pivotal to the biblical story. Overall, these noteworthy essays represent a wide range of creative possibilities for updating our theological anthropology in line with a post-Darwinian setting, but they are less convincing when justifying the theological cost for doing so.

William D. Mounce

Do Formal Equivalent Translations Reflect a Higher View of Plenary, Verbal Inspiration?

The article begins by establishing five categories of translation theory and argues that functional translations like the NIV do in fact reflect the meaning of every Greek word, but not in the same way as formal equivalent translations do. Therefore, formal equivalent translations cannot claim a higher view of inspiration.

Matthew Swale

Power for Prayer through the Psalms: Cassiodorus’s Interpretation of the Honey of Souls

Exegesis, prayer, and spiritual formation converge in the Psalms commentary written by Cassiodorus (490–584). Each psalm’s exegesis ends with a “conclusion” considering the implications for morality, doctrine, or prayer. This study focuses on how Cassiodorus’s exegesis of the Psalms provides power for prayer. First, Cassiodorus’s rich expositions of the Psalms of Ascent and Psalm 142 illustrate his approach to the Psalter as God’s provision of superior, life-changing words. Second, prayer flows from Cassiodorus’s handling of individual psalms in four ways: prayerful exegesis, prayer exemplars, prayer templates, and prayer as the means to psalmic formation.

Kenneth J. Stewart

The Oxford Movement and Evangelicalism: Initial Encounters

Commemorations of the birth of the Oxford Movement (later known as Anglo-Catholicism) have regularly intimated certain early commonalities with evangelicalism, especially within the Church of England. It was so at the 1933 centenary of the launch of the movement; such hypotheses have been given fresh life with the 2017 release of the Oxford Handbook of the Oxford Movement. This essay examines the basis for these suggestions and finds them wanting.

Kyle Beshears

Athens without a Statue to the Unknown God

Apatheism is indifference and apathy toward the existence of God. In our secular age, a person adopts apatheism when they feel a sense of existential security absent God, effectively dissolving their reason, motivation, and will to care about questions related to his existence. This indifference presents a stronger challenge for evangelism than does religious pluralism, agnosticism, and atheism. For this reason, evangelicals ought to explore ways of engaging apatheism.

Mark Boone

Inerrancy Is Not a Strong or Classical Foundationalism

The general idea of strong foundationalism is that knowledge is founded on well warranted beliefs that do not derive any warrant from other beliefs and that all our other beliefs depend on these foundational ones for their warrant. Although inerrancy posits Scripture as a solid foundation for theology, the idea that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy involves a strong foundationalist epistemology is deeply problematic. In fact, inerrancy does not require any particular view of the structure of knowledge, and notable sources on inerrancy tout it in ways inconsistent with most forms of strong foundationalism.

Daniel Wiley

The God Who Reveals: A Response to J.L. Schellenberg’s Hiddenness Argument

The challenge of divine hiddenness has become one of the greatest advocates for skepticism in modern philosophical debate. From this challenge, Schellenberg has developed the now acclaimed hiddenness argument. For Schellenberg, an all-loving God would be always open to personal relationships with finite creatures, and thus all nonbelief would derive from resistance to God. However, the existence of nonresistant nonbelievers, or those who have never resisted the idea of God, must prove that God does not exist, for surely an all-loving God would leave enough evidence of himself to convince finite creatures of his existence and prevent nonresistant nonbelief. In response, I argue that (1) openness to personal relationships and love are not as correlated as the hiddenness argument demands, (2) nonresistant nonbelief is not provable, and (3) Schellenberg fails to reason to God’s omni-benevolence apart from Scripture.

Book Reviews

Ben Patterson on Five Ways to Pray the Psalms

In God’s Prayer Book: The Power and Pleasure of Praying the Psalms (Wheaton: Tyndale, 2008), Ben Patterson outlines five ways to pray the psalms:

1. Say Them Out Loud. Just read the Psalms slowly and thoughtfully, assenting to what they say with as much understanding as you have, intellectually and emotionally. Don’t just read them, pray them; say them from the heart.

2. Festoon Them. Think of a psalm as a Christmas tree. Read it and then festoon it with your own prayers, as you would decorate a tree.

3. Paraphrase Them. Meditate on and study a psalm until you understand it well enough to put it into your own words. Then paraphrase the psalm as you have come to understand it, and pray your paraphrase.

4. Learn Them by Heart. Memorize the Psalms – but not by rote. Rather, learn them by heart; make their words your words.

5. Marinate in Them. The soul should marinate in Scripture by repeated, thoughtful, slow, comprehensive, and Spirit-enlightened reading.

Crucible 8, 2 (November 2017)

The latest issue of Crucible, published by the Australian Evangelical Alliance, is now available online here, with the below articles (abstracts included, where available).

The issue is themed on the book of Psalms, flowing out of a ‘Young Scholars Summit’, convened at Tyndale House, Cambridge, in the summer of 2014, where the goal was to pursue the question, ‘How are we as Christians to understand the Psalms messianically?’

The Cauldron: peer reviewed articles

Kathy Maxwell

Experiencing Psalm 22: A Literary Approach

Jesus’ cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” has a rich history that began long before Golgotha. Who first voiced this question and in what context? When was it put to paper? Why does Jesus cry out these particular words? How should we understand this heart-rending question from Jesus’ mouth? Whose words are these: the psalmist’s, Jesus’, or someone else’s? What do the gospel writers mean to communicate when they include so many allusions to Psalm 22 in the passion narratives? Is Jesus’ crucifixion the climactic use of the Cry of Dereliction? Is it, and if so, when is it appropriate for others to echo these same words? These questions and more arise from the synoptic Passion narratives. To answer them, one must return to the “original” source of Psalm 22. When practiced in isolation, however, historical- and literary-critical methods suffer from the frustrating ambiguity found in much of poetic literature, including that of the Bible. This study involves a close reading of Psalm 22, with a particular eye to the gospels’ use of that psalm in the Passion narrative. Historical-critical methods are useful when formulating ideas for the referent of the psalm and the original audience. Literary-critical methods are particularly helpful when studying the structure of the psalm, a fascinating study in and of itself. Drawing on insights from these two fields of research, this study attempts to move beyond their limitations to celebrate the ambiguity revealed by both. Embracing the ambiguity of Psalm 22 encourages solidarity of experience and faith among the people of God across the centuries, including the ancient Israelite, ancient Christian, and modern Christian contexts.

A.J. Culp

Of Wedding Songs and Prophecies: Canonical Reading as the Clue to Understanding Psalm 45 as Prophecy

How do the Psalms prophesy the Messiah? The New Testament writers like to cite the Psalms to show Jesus of Nazareth is Israel’s Messiah, but they do so in ways that surprise us. This has caused a long-standing interpretive problem, for while the reasoning may have been clear to them it is not clear to us. This article therefore speaks to that issue. It makes a case for a canonical approach to the Psalms as a window into the interpretive practices of the New Testament writers. Psalm 45, an Israelite wedding song cited in Hebrews 1 as evidence of Christ’s exalted nature, is used as test case.

Bryan C. Babcock

Who is “My Lord” in Psalm 110?

Psalm 110 begins “A Psalm of David. YHWH says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’" The first verse includes an ambiguous phrase “my lord” which might be interpreted to mean David as sovereign. David, as the speaker, may also be referring to his son Solomon. A final option is that David is prophetically identifying a messianic figure who will sit at the right hand of God. 

This study is the outcome of a summit held at Cambridge University sponsored by The International Reference Library for Biblical Research (IRLBR). The program offered a small community of young evangelical scholars the opportunity to pursue solutions to a current academic debate within evangelical biblical studies to the benefit of the Church. As such, the discussions centered on answering “What qualifies a psalm as messianic?” To answer this question, the team of four young scholars debated various positions while exploring Psalms 2, 22, 45, and 110. To identify the intended meaning of the psalms it was essential to understand the answers to several questions, including:

• What is the historical context for the writing of the psalm?

• How do the details of the psalm fit into its larger Old Testament context?

• How would an Old Testament reader most likely have understood these texts?

• What interpretational trajectories surface in early Jewish interpretation of these psalms?

• What hermeneutical steps have the New Testament authors taken to understand the meaning of the psalm?

This analysis works through the hermeneutical process establishing the historical context of Psalm 110 at the time of its authorship. The study then follows the interpretive trajectory through the Old Testament and into the New Testament finding three ways to support the association of the psalm with the Messiah: eschatological-typology, rhetorical-typological, and realized-typology. Finally, the project offers four applications for the modern Church.

The Test-tube: ministry resources

Jeff Brannon

Psalm 2 in the History of Redemption

Psalm 2 is a kingship psalm that represents not only the ideals, hopes, and aspirations of Israel, but also the Lord’s purposes and plans for the Kingdom of God. While many psalms focus on either the Lord’s heavenly kinship or the earthly kinship of Israel’s king, Psalm 2 emphasizes both realities and demonstrates the close relationship between the two. The themes of God’s sovereign purposes and kingship permeate the psalm. Psalm 2 also figures prominently in the New Testament as New Testament authors frequently quote or allude to the psalm in order to demonstrate its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. In light of these themes, Psalm 2 is essential to investigate in any study of messianic psalms. In this investigation, I answer a number of questions related to Psalm 2 and the topic of messianic psalms. How should Psalm 2 be understood in its Old Testament context? How do the New Testament authors apply Psalm 2 to Jesus Christ? Is Psalm 2 predictive of the Messiah, or is it only messianic in hindsight? What is a messianic psalm? How is Psalm 2 messianic? In order to answer these questions, I discuss how the redemptive-historical method benefits Bible interpreters in understanding Psalm 2 both in its Old Testament context and in its New Testament references. Additionally, this essay serves as an example of the redemptive-historical approach to Scripture, and demonstrates how this method benefits Bible interpreters as they investigate Old Testament passages and their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Andrew Brown

Lift Us Up Where We Belong

David J. Cohen

Using the Psalms in Ministry

Stan Nickerson

Preaching from the Psalms: A Suggested Approach

Andrew Sloane

When Theology Sings: Reflections on the Theological Significance of Poetry

Lindsay Wilson

How to Preach Different Psalm Types in the Light of the New Testament