Why do the Old Testament Scholars Get All the Fun? This may sound like a strange thing to say, but I’m jealous of those who get to teach the Old Testament. I get paid to teach the New Testament, which I love doing, but I’m envious of those teaching the Old. Why? When it comes...
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Reading a mystery? For class? Seriously? This is the second week for the Capital Fellows, the graduate seminar I teach every Monday morning through the fall, September to December, and the first book I had them read was Dorothy Sayers’ Whose Body? one of the wonderfully complex stories of Lord Peter Wimsey, the very amazing...
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I’ve always been a black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinker, which for the most part has not served me well — because most of life is lived and figured out in the gray areas. If I didn’t get an A on that assignment in college, then I failed. The cake I baked fell a little in the oven,...
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Exile was a concept directly familiar to Israelites. Israel, though Abraham, Moses, and David, was given many promises. The Lord would bless and uphold his people. They were to multiply like the stars of the sky. The sons of Abraham would have a great name. The Kingdom of David would never end. Through Israel’s sin...
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Jeremiah 29 is one of the seminal texts to biblically consider faith, work, and vocation. Unfortunately, verse 11 is often read without the surrounding context: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11, ESV)...
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Our teachers teach us, and that’s the point. We choose to learn, and because that is true, who we choose to learn from is crucial in what we learn. I have long described the deepest learning as over-the-shoulder, through-the-heart learning, because the most formative pedagogy is always that. Anyone who knows me knows that I...
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