"He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young."
Isaiah 40:11, NIV
Memo to Obama
Isaiah 40:21-24 (NIV)
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.
When God said this, Sennacherib and the Assyrians were ruling the world. Then it was Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. Then Cyrus and the Persians, Alexander and the Greeks, and Augustus and the Romans.
We ‘ve seen Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, and Winston Churchill.
They are nothing to God. One little breath and like chaff they disappear.
God hasn’t moved. He is still on the throne.
Astronomy 101
Every day I restrain myself from posting something here about/from Isaiah. Tonight I have succumbed to the temptation.
Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing (Isaiah 40:26).
That’s worth reading again.
Second Clement on Waiting
As I mentioned before, one of the classes I have this semester is New Testament Backgrounds. The chief goal of this course is to acquaint us with the primary literature from the centuries before and after the time of Christ. I’ve mentioned previously some of my readings in the Apocrypha, but I haven’t had time or interest to mention some of the others. This week we ‘re reading in the Apostolic Fathers. One general observation: though tons of people wrote in biblical times, nobody wrote as good as the Bible writers. There is a major difference between the worst book of the Bible and the best of the rest. That’s subjective, but I don’t know any objective measure.
The Apostolic Fathers were the first Christian writers after the New Testament. These guys did not take long to get off track. The allegorical interpretational approach of Alexandria, for instance, was quickly adopted by some.
There are certainly edifying portions, and I include one portion for your benefit. This is the ending of 2 Clement, a sermon (loosely) based on Isaiah 54:1, and written c. AD 130.
But do not let it trouble your mind that we see the unrighteous possessing wealth while the servants of God experience hardships. (2) Let us have faith, brothers and sisters! We are competing in the contest of a living God, and are being trained by the present life in order that we may be crowned in the life to come. (3) None of the righteous ever received his reward quickly, but waits for it. (4) For if God paid the wages of the righteous immediately, we would soon be engaged in business, not godliness; though we would appear to be righteous, we would in fact be pursuing not piety but profit. And this is why the divine judgment punishes a spirit that is not righteous, and loads it with chains.
(5) “To the only God, invisible,” the Father of truth, who sent forth to us the Savior and Founder of immortality, through whom he also revealed to us the truth and the heavenly life, to him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
A good introduction to the Apostolic Fathers is Clayton N. Jefford, Reading the Apostolic Fathers: An Introduction, 1996. A good translation of the writings themselves can be in Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, 2007. (If you know my wife’s maiden name, check out the preface.)
November 29
Would you say this in a fundraising/thank you letter? “A willingness to sacrifice for us is proof of genuine faith.”
If you know the difference between the ESV and NIV and you have ever expressed a preference for one over the other, I suggest you read Mounce’s ETS paper on how to “play fair.”
John Piper goes to prison. I believe that this is worth two minutes of your time.
What’s Best Next is running a series on rules. When Rules Go Bad: An Example has some good insights.
This live demonstration of a ladder on a shopping channel didn’t quite succeed.
Sign on Church Pulpit
Papers at ETS
If you’ve never been to a conference of the Evangelical Theological Society and you wonder what you might hear there, I thought I’d give you a list of the presentations I attended. In most cases, the presenter reads his paper. Sometimes he hands out his paper or an outline.
There were many sessions that I could not attend because of schedule conflicts (there are probably 25 sessions going on simultaneously). Sometimes I chose the subject over the presenter, and sometimes I chose to hear a presenter when another subject was of greater interest. Overall, my experience this year was very positive.
Bryant Wood, “Tracking the Israelites in the Sinai Wilderness” – if he’s right, Mount Sinai was not much more than a speedbump. (I don’t think he’s right.)
Doug Petrovich, “A Search for Historical Evidence of Joseph’s Impact on Egypt” – this could be very interesting as he continues research.
Seth Rodriquez, “Site Identification: In Search of a Methodology?” – doesn’t this sound like a great topic?
Robert Thomas, “The Hermeneutics of Integrity” – I’m not sure what kind of genitive we have here, but he made some important points.
Gary E. Yates, “Isaiah’s Promise of the Restoration of Zion and Its Canonical Development” – possibly the most interesting paper (32 pages long!), given my current obsession.
Bryan Cribb, “A Series of Unfortunate Events: How Hezekiah’s Interrupted Death Story Hails the Exile” – I’m much more into these kind of studies than I used to be.
Richard Hess, “Personal and Social Ethics among the Canaanites” – he started off the lecture with “You can’t trust what the Bible says about the Canaanites.” Yep, that’s the Hess I know and (don’t) love.
Charlie Trimm, “David, the Warrior After God’s Own Heart? The Ethics of David’s International Wars according to the Narrator of 2 Samuel” – excellent presentation; one that makes me glad I went to ETS this year.
John Oswalt, “Summary of ‘The Bible among the Myths ‘” – good insights and nice to hear the voice behind the commentary (of Isaiah)
Bruce Waltke, “Being Money-Wise according to the Book of Proverbs” – I went to this more to hear the speaker than for the topic. Yet it made me want to spend the rest of my life studying Proverbs.
I didn’t go to a single plenary session. That may have contributed to my positive experience mentioned above. The above accounts for two of my four days in New Orleans. The other two days I was at the Bible and Archaeology Fest and I plan to comment on some of those good lectures on the BiblePlaces Blog.
I ate meals with a variety of people, including three former IBEX students, one seminary classmate, one DTS professor, one TMC Bible professor I had not met, and one fellow Texan who I “met” through my (other?) blog. I also met and talked briefly with the author of another two-volume Isaiah commentary that I am really enjoying. I mentioned previously that I would be rooming with our church’s pastor and youth pastor; that went very well (except for the snoring).
As for academic conferences, Justin Taylor yesterday on his blog provided a couple of quotations on the Value of Academic Conferences that are both humorous and serious. I entirely agree.
Calendars Remaining
I plan to mail out calendars next week. If you thought it was too late or that I would run out, you ‘re wrong. You have a few days to send me an email with your mailing address if you want one.
I just received tonight a contract for a 2011 calendar that will be the best I’ve ever been part of. (I won’t have any free ones of those, unfortunately, but you ‘ll be able to buy them in a store near you.)
MP3 Album for $2 at Amazon
This week Amazon has 500 mp3 albums on sale for $5. With coupon “MP34Free” you get $3 off (until 11/30). Artists include Owl City, Beach Boys, U2, Tim McGraw, and Shekinah Glory Ministry (?!?).
What I Learned in New Orleans
Most of my time in New Orleans was spent in hotel rooms – either in mine sleeping or in conference rooms listening. But I did get out for meals and to walk from one hotel to another. That afforded me a few opportunities to experience the culture. Here are a few things I learned.
I have a different name in New Orleans. I am “baby,” “darling,” and “hun,” to people I’ve never seen before.
New Orleans is like Egypt: the goal is to separate you from your money. The city has a 9% sales tax. The hotel charges $10 if you want to exercise. There is a $25 surcharge for mailing a package near a hotel. McDonalds does not give free refills. (And I thought the last was a right granted by the Constitution.)
I’ve studied a lot about temples in the Greco-Roman world this year. New Orleans has a temple where many go to worship. They make pilgrimage to here from great distances. The building’s facade even looks like a temple. (I didn’t get a picture, but you can see one here.) When archaeologists dig this up in a thousand years, they will find clear evidence of cultic activity.
There is no equal opportunity employment at McDonalds. Everyone is the same color and gender.
The city has sections that are sleazier than any I’ve seen even in Europe. I guess it didn’t take long after the clean-up to get real dirty.
I saw nothing to indicate that a hurricane had hit the city four years ago. I never would have guessed. I suppose if you really want to take a city out, fire and brimstone works better.
Tomorrow I ‘ll share some of the presentations I attended.