This verse comes in the context of Jesus’ instructions to the twelve before sending them out to proclaim the imminence of the reign of God (10:7). In particular it presupposes the warning that they will face persecution from the Jews as they go… ( | 1 comment)
The allusion to Hos. 6:6 LXX (‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’) brings into view the wider context of Hosea’s prophecy. The people of Israel will take their sacrificial animals to the temple, but they will not find the Lord there (Hos. 5:6… ()
Jesus tells the disciples to choose a difficult road leading to life rather than an easy road leading to destruction. The basic question to be addressed here is this: Is this a choice exclusively for the community of his followers in the context of… ( | 5 comments)
Here is a good example of the sort of tight corner that a historical reading of New Testament eschatology can get us into. The Lord’s prayer is a central element in our formal and informal liturgies. We assume that it is timeless: we imagine… ()
The beatitude in Judaism
The beatitude is a common Jewish literary form, found widely in biblical and post-biblical writings. Essentially, it is an affirmation of those who have gained divine approval or of a way of life that will ensure divine… ()
The announcement that Jesus will ‘save his people from their sins’ is followed immediately by the reference to the prophecy in Isaiah about a virgin or young woman who will bear a son whose name will be Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14).
This child will not… ()
Joseph is told by the angel that the boy will be called Jesus because ‘he will save his people from their sins’. We expect the Christmas story to have universal relevance, good news for all mankind, but the message here is only that Jesus will be… ()
Conceived by the Holy Spirit
The Christmas stories have to do more with Jesus as Messiah than with the incarnation. There is no suggestion that only in this way could he be sinless, etc.; it is not taken as an argument for Jesus’ divinity. Rather… ()
This passage has traditionally been understood to describe an end-of-history coming of Jesus to take the church to heaven to be with God. It needs to be read, however, with a strong awareness of the historical setting, on the one hand, and of the… ( | 2 comments)
1. Paul’s argument in 1 Cor. 11:2-16 has nothing to do with submission - that is simply not what he is talking about. The word exousian occurs in verse 10 but what he says here is that a woman ‘ought to have authority over (… ()
Simeon is a righteous and devout man who has been looking for the ‘consolation’ or ‘comforting’ (paraklēsis) of Israel. The phrase is an unmistakable reference to the theme of the ‘comforting’ of Israel and Zion that is found widely in… ()
The theme of a restricted, national salvation is evidenced in the angelic announcement to the shepherds. The child is born for their benefit (‘unto you’), because the renewal of Israel would begin at the margins, amongst the poor,… ()
The Benedictus of Zechariah corresponds to Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) and echoes its central theme, which is that YHWH has acted to redeem Israel from its state of oppression for the sake of the promise to Abraham to preserve an… ()
It is characteristic of postmodern art that the relationship between the artist and the work of art produced is not as straightforward as we are accustomed to expect. Conventionally an art object such as a painting or sculpture is understood to be… ( | 1 comment)
My book has now been republished by Wipf & Stock.From the back cover:Tracing the powerful motif of the ‘coming of the Son of man’ from Daniel through to Revelation, Andrew Perriman provides thought-provoking ideas about eschatological narrative… ( | 5 comments)
Jesus’ story about a poor widow who seeks vindication against her adversary is usually read as a model of Christian prayer in a quite general sense (see, for example, these commentaries collected at textweek). This approach certainly yields some… ( | 4 comments)
In response to Peter’s post about the Evangelical Alliance statement of faith, I would suggest that this sort of statement is designed for a particular purpose and does it admirably. An organization like the EA needs to define a doctrinal… ()
The ‘emerging church’ project is an experiment in new forms of church. The question of what ‘church’ is, however, cannot be resolved sociologically or experimentally. Ultimately, a theological answer is required. This page was written to provide… ()
Paul Seburn referred in another post to the ‘transmillennial’ view on New Testament eschatology. I thought it might be worth examining this separately. There’s a lot of material on the two sites I looked at (www.presence.tv and www.… ()
There is both a diachronic (historical) and a synchronic (a-historical, existential) dimension to the development of a theology for the emerging church. The argument has for the most part been developed synchronically in response to cultural and… ()
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