Gerald H. Wilson, Job, New International Biblical Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson/Bletchley: Paternoster, 2007).
The publishers make available a few pdf excerpts of this commentary, including the Introduction.
Wilson begins with the title of book and its date (late, rather than early, for the final form of the book – exilic or post-exilic).
He discusses the place of Job in its broader wisdom context. The ‘retributive wisdom’ of Proverbs is balanced by other forms of wisdom, since ‘according to observation and experience, the hallmarks of the wisdom enterprise, wise and righteous persons do not always prosper, and the foolish and wicked often seem to avoid suffering and judgment’ (3-4). Even while Ecclesiastes and Job explore these alternatives, they do not seek to undermine faith in God, but ‘offer their own testimony to a continuing reliance on God and acknowledge the pain and confusion that inhabit the real world of the observant sage’ (4).
He has a short section on the text of the book (‘one of the most difficult Hebrew texts in the OT’, 5), before devoting more attention to the structure of the book (6-11), noting the following components:
• Prose prologue and epilogue (chs. 1-2; 42:7-17)
• Poetic dialogue (chs. 3-31)
• A wisdom poem (ch. 28)
• The poetic Elihu monologues (chs. 32-37)
• The theophanic appearance of God (chs. 38-42)
He argues that ‘although the book of Job contains many distinctive components, some of which may have circulated earlier as independent compositions, there is an intentional editorial unity with a cohesive purpose and message in the canonical final form of the book’ (11).
The book as a whole shows that despite ‘suffering and mystery, the powerless inability to control oneself or one’s world, God is still worth holding onto in a relationship of absolute dependence (which is the fear of God)’ (15).
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Glenn Smith on Urban Mission
The December 2009 Connecting Point ENewsletter from the Lausanne Movement (available here) links to a relatively short article by Glenn Smith on ‘God’s Global Urban Mission in an Era of the Autonomous Self and Globalization’.
His fourfold agenda for urban churches revolves around these four points:
1. The local congregation as the entity that interprets the triune God to the neighbourhood
2. Bearing witness to the God of Jesus Christ and all his teachings
3. Pursuing spiritual formation, church education, and discipleship
4. Preaching and teaching to bring together heart and head
He provides fuller theological background here.
His fourfold agenda for urban churches revolves around these four points:
1. The local congregation as the entity that interprets the triune God to the neighbourhood
2. Bearing witness to the God of Jesus Christ and all his teachings
3. Pursuing spiritual formation, church education, and discipleship
4. Preaching and teaching to bring together heart and head
He provides fuller theological background here.
The World in 2010
The World in 2010, published by The Economist, 154pp., £5.50.
This magazine is ideal reading for my tube journeys in and out of central London. As with last year’s publication, it’s a mixture of comment on projected issues and events of 2010, along with some soft predictions and speculations, largely limited to politics and economics but with some popular culture references, divided into the following main areas:
• Leaders
• Britain
• Europe
• United States
• The Americas
• Asia
• Middle East and Africa
• International
• The world in figures
• Business
• Finance
• Science
• Obituary
The articles, along with archived issues from previous years, are available online here, and an audio version can be purchased here.
This magazine is ideal reading for my tube journeys in and out of central London. As with last year’s publication, it’s a mixture of comment on projected issues and events of 2010, along with some soft predictions and speculations, largely limited to politics and economics but with some popular culture references, divided into the following main areas:
• Leaders
• Britain
• Europe
• United States
• The Americas
• Asia
• Middle East and Africa
• International
• The world in figures
• Business
• Finance
• Science
• Obituary
The articles, along with archived issues from previous years, are available online here, and an audio version can be purchased here.
Monday, 4 January 2010
Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible (38/50) – His Ascension to Heaven: Out of This World?
‘Word for the Week: Whole Life, Whole Bible’, from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, is a series of fifty emails designed to look at the main milestones of the biblical story, seeking to show how whole-life discipleship is woven through Scripture as a whole, from beginning to end. Here is the thirty-eighth of the fifty emails.
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
Luke 24:50-53
Christ’s ascension sometimes gets bundled with his resurrection rather than treated as an event in its own right. In fact, as the rhythm of the church’s calendar reminds us, they were separated by forty days. That rhythm, itself informed by the biblical story, enables us to see things as they really are – from God’s perspective – with Jesus’ ascension opening up a new era in the history of his dealings with the world and his people in the world.
At the very least, it means Jesus is exalted to the right hand of God, as Peter explains (Acts 2:33-36; 5:31), showing he is less interested in the ‘up-down’ mechanics of the event than he is with the status of his Lord – the ascension confirming him as the king, the fulfilment of God’s promises to David.
Beyond this, lose the ascension and we lose the heavenly ministry of Jesus as our High Priest, his very presence with God providing intercession on our behalf, his finished work requiring no repetition or extension of any kind. Lose the ascension and we risk losing the comfort of hope – that one day our weak bodies will be like his glorious body, that the same Jesus who ascended will return as judge and king. And as a man too – for he did not slip off his humanity to get on with the task of being the exalted Son of God, but has taken it into the very presence of God, wedding us to him forever, reminding us once again of God’s commitment to restore his creation.
Meanwhile, the ascension does not mark the end of his work on earth, but the continuation of it through the church – a mission which can be carried out with confidence because of the position our Master now occupies, with all places subject to his rule and all people subject to his oversight – including the places we inhabit and the people we encounter, even today.
As the ascended Lord, he lays claim not just to the church but to all realms of life. And his heavenly location redraws how we think about our ‘location’, how we live in our earthly spaces given the one from whom we take our bearing, our lives oriented around the reality of the risen and ascended Christ, his heavenly lordship investing today’s even apparently menial tasks with eternal significance.
For further reflection and action:
1. Read and reflect on some of the passages in Hebrews which describe Jesus’ ascension and ministry as the Great High Priest – 1:3; 2:9; 4:14-16; 6:19-20; 7:23-8:2; 10:19-25; 12:2.
2. An old adage suggests that some Christians can be too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use. In keeping with our reflections on Christ’s ascension, how far is it important for us to be heavenly minded precisely to be of earthly use?
3. Try to chat with a fellow Christian this week about the ongoing significance of the ascension for our lives as disciples of Christ.
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
Luke 24:50-53
Christ’s ascension sometimes gets bundled with his resurrection rather than treated as an event in its own right. In fact, as the rhythm of the church’s calendar reminds us, they were separated by forty days. That rhythm, itself informed by the biblical story, enables us to see things as they really are – from God’s perspective – with Jesus’ ascension opening up a new era in the history of his dealings with the world and his people in the world.
At the very least, it means Jesus is exalted to the right hand of God, as Peter explains (Acts 2:33-36; 5:31), showing he is less interested in the ‘up-down’ mechanics of the event than he is with the status of his Lord – the ascension confirming him as the king, the fulfilment of God’s promises to David.
Beyond this, lose the ascension and we lose the heavenly ministry of Jesus as our High Priest, his very presence with God providing intercession on our behalf, his finished work requiring no repetition or extension of any kind. Lose the ascension and we risk losing the comfort of hope – that one day our weak bodies will be like his glorious body, that the same Jesus who ascended will return as judge and king. And as a man too – for he did not slip off his humanity to get on with the task of being the exalted Son of God, but has taken it into the very presence of God, wedding us to him forever, reminding us once again of God’s commitment to restore his creation.
Meanwhile, the ascension does not mark the end of his work on earth, but the continuation of it through the church – a mission which can be carried out with confidence because of the position our Master now occupies, with all places subject to his rule and all people subject to his oversight – including the places we inhabit and the people we encounter, even today.
As the ascended Lord, he lays claim not just to the church but to all realms of life. And his heavenly location redraws how we think about our ‘location’, how we live in our earthly spaces given the one from whom we take our bearing, our lives oriented around the reality of the risen and ascended Christ, his heavenly lordship investing today’s even apparently menial tasks with eternal significance.
For further reflection and action:
1. Read and reflect on some of the passages in Hebrews which describe Jesus’ ascension and ministry as the Great High Priest – 1:3; 2:9; 4:14-16; 6:19-20; 7:23-8:2; 10:19-25; 12:2.
2. An old adage suggests that some Christians can be too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use. In keeping with our reflections on Christ’s ascension, how far is it important for us to be heavenly minded precisely to be of earthly use?
3. Try to chat with a fellow Christian this week about the ongoing significance of the ascension for our lives as disciples of Christ.
The Theology of John M. Frame
John J. Hughes (ed.), Speaking the Truth in Love: The Theology of John M. Frame (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2009), lxxxi +1118pp., ISBN 9781596381643.
This is my first book of 2010. At over 1,200 pages long, it’s unlikely I’ll read all of it, but it does look like a superb collection of essays engaging with different aspects of John Frame’s own voluminous output.
The publisher’s website profiles it here, from where it is also possible to download a pdf of the table of contents.
Although it is effectively a Festschrift for John Frame, it is slightly unusual in that he himself has collaborated in its production, providing two chapters of orientation to his thinking, including this one on the genesis and main ideas of his books.
This is my first book of 2010. At over 1,200 pages long, it’s unlikely I’ll read all of it, but it does look like a superb collection of essays engaging with different aspects of John Frame’s own voluminous output.
The publisher’s website profiles it here, from where it is also possible to download a pdf of the table of contents.
Although it is effectively a Festschrift for John Frame, it is slightly unusual in that he himself has collaborated in its production, providing two chapters of orientation to his thinking, including this one on the genesis and main ideas of his books.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Scottish Journal of Theology 63, 1 (2010)
Cambridge University Press have kindly made the contents of the most recent edition of Scottish Journal of Theology – 63, 1 (2010) – available for free here, with articles as follows:
Oliver Crisp
Is Universalism a Problem for Particularists?
Kent P. Jackson
Joseph Smith and the Bible
Walter Lowe
Why We Need Apocalyptic
Philip Almond
John Napier and the Mathematics of the ‘Middle Future’ Apocalypse
Paul D. Molnar
‘Thy Word is Truth’: The Role of Faith in Reading Scripture Theologically with Karl Barth
Alexander Y. Hwang
Manifold Grace in John Cassian and Prosper of Aquitaine
Book Reviews
Oliver Crisp
Is Universalism a Problem for Particularists?
Kent P. Jackson
Joseph Smith and the Bible
Walter Lowe
Why We Need Apocalyptic
Philip Almond
John Napier and the Mathematics of the ‘Middle Future’ Apocalypse
Paul D. Molnar
‘Thy Word is Truth’: The Role of Faith in Reading Scripture Theologically with Karl Barth
Alexander Y. Hwang
Manifold Grace in John Cassian and Prosper of Aquitaine
Book Reviews
Bible Reading Plans
This is the time of the year when many start, with good and hopeful intentions, to read through the Bible in a year…
Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds has a very helpful post here which offers an overview of different plans for reading the Bible. There are also follow-up posts here (Six Ways to Access the ESV Bible Reading Plans), here (ESV Reading Plans as Podcasts), and here (Bible Reading Plan for Shirkers and Slackers).
Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds has a very helpful post here which offers an overview of different plans for reading the Bible. There are also follow-up posts here (Six Ways to Access the ESV Bible Reading Plans), here (ESV Reading Plans as Podcasts), and here (Bible Reading Plan for Shirkers and Slackers).
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