This evening, I will be marrying my fiancée. I’m am so thankful for such a beautiful gift from our Lord. I do not deserve such grace.

I pray that this day would glorify God, and remind us that one glorious day, Jesus will return for his bride and restore this broken world to it’s intended glory. We pray for your return, Lord, and to be in your presence forever in the garden-city.

[No, I will not be live-tweeting the ceremony ]

Over a month ago, I wrote a post answering the question “Why was Jesus Baptized?” where I argued that no answer has been truly satisfying, there were two paradigms that are very helpful to me. The first paradigm, argued for in the first post, was the “tri-perspectival” paradigm where I said that the entire baptism event (baptism, Spirit descending, and the voice of God) should be held as a unity integrating ideas such as identification, anointing, and pronouncement. Please see the first post for an actual treatment of this view. In this post, I’m going to look at the Biblical-Theological view. I also want to restate that I don’t think this is an either/or issue, but that both paradigms shed led on the baptism event. Nor do I think these are the only valid paradigms. Jesus’ baptism can be found in Matthew 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, and Luke 3:21-22.
Read the rest of this entry

No, not me, unfortunately.

Fortunately, it’s a good friend of mine—Alicia. Alicia emailed me recently to tell me the good news that she is now writing a column on Christianity based out of St. Louis, which is the second best “louis-” city after Louisville. Her focus, thus far, has been apologetics though she has a pretty open range of issue she can and will be discussing. I definitely suggest checking it out: Alicia’s column.

The second of two memes that Mike (ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ) recently tagged me in is listing 5 books or scholars that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how I read the Bible. This list probably won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone familiar with what I’ve written. It is in no particular order.

1. Greg Beale, Christopher Wright, and Tremper Longman III

More than any other authors, these three have heavily influenced me in several areas including intertextuality, and understanding the Old Testament in light of the New. In terms of intertextuality, Greg Beale’s book “We Become What We Worship” (review) is top-notch. For Christopher Wright, make sure to check out “Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament” (review [link down at the moment]) and “The Mission of God” Tremper Longman has a lot of great books out there, but the most recent I read by him is “Immanuel in Our Place: Seeing Christ in Israel’s Worship ” (review).

2. Andy Crouch, Michael Wittmer, Abraham Kuyper and Tim Keller

This three men have all written books/sermons that have absolutely transformed my view of Christianity’s call to cultural engagement. Crouch’s “Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling” is an absolute must-read in this area. Wittmer’s “Heaven Is a Place on Earth: Why Everything You Do Matters to God” is one of the better theologically reasoned books on the subject. Kuyper’s sphere sovereignty is foundational for most of my thinking. And Tim Keller is Tim Keller.

Now I’ve already gone over my limit of 5, though I guess I’m really doing this by themes instead of authors. Either way, I’m going to stop with the next section—
3. N.T. Wright
Wright has been one of my greatest influences since I’ve been introduced to him. In terms of eschatology and understanding how it plays out in the present, he is unmatched. In terms of defending the historicity of the resurrection, no one else comes close. Understanding the Bible in terms of community—one of the best. When I disagree with him (mostly his definition of “righteous”), he forces me to think through a text in light of what he says. I can never outright reject him, I have to look at the passages and study them thoroughly before I reject what he says.

I know there’s a lot more people that should be on this list… but I either can’t think of them or I’m not trying because I have so many already. I’m hoping that Brad and Jacob pick up on this.

Mike at ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ is apparently tired of my long periods of silence, and has tagged me in to memes. The first of the two is the “Funny things in ancient literature” meme, where we are to… well… mention something funny from ancient literature. Three things immediately sprang to mind for this meme.

First, we have the Apostle Paul:

Ὄφελον καὶ ἀποκόψονται οἱ ἀναστατοῦντες ὑμᾶς.

which, translated, says: “I wish that those who bother you [by saying you need to be circumcised] would just cut the whole thing off!”
-or-
“I wish that those who bother you wouldn’t stop at the foreskin!”

Wow, Paul.

Second is the prophet Elijah:

‏ויהי בצהרים ויהתּל בהם אליהו ויאמר קראו בקול־גדול כי־אלהים הוא כי שיח וכי־שיג לו וכי־דרך לו אולי ישן הוא ויקץ

Translated:
When it was around noon, Elijah began to mock the prophets of Baal: “Shout louder! He is a god after all! Maybe he is busy daydreaming, or maybe he’s using the bathroom or he has left to go on a journey! Perhaps he’s asleep and you need to wake him up!” (1 Kings 18:27)

Oh Elijah. Of course, the best Old Testament story goes to Elijah’s protégé Elisha. Check it out:

Elisha went up to bethel, and as he was walking along the road some children came out from the town and began to make fun of him. “Get out of here, baldy!” They said. Elisha turned around, looked at them, and cursed them in the name of YHWH. Two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youth. So Elisha went on to Mount Carmel, and returned to Samaria from there. 2 Kings 2:23-25.

Hahahaha. That’s hardcore. This is made even better in the KJV/ESV where they translated the gender of the word for bears as “she bears.” You DO NOT mess with God’s annointed—especially the bald ones.

I’m tagging Brad, Jacob, and Rick.

So, the server that is hosting my site crashed and I lost all the posts and changes I’ve made since June 1st. I’ll be adding the posts back, as they are saved in my google reader, but I’m not really going to try and remember what cosmetic changes I’ve had since then. If you subscribe to my blog, you’ll probably be getting some repeats in your email or reader—just FYI!