Bible

Paul wrote to Timothy: "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching." (1 Timothy 4:13)

A thought on why Ezekiel 40-48 are such important chapters.

The other day I was reading 2 Chronicles 6:36-39, the prayer that Solomon prays when he dedicates the new temple he's just built. If the people are exiled, they can pray towards the city and the temple and God will hear.

The parable of the lost sheep occurs in two of the gospels: It's in Matthew 18:10-14 and Luke 15:1-7.

In Acts 23:12-22, Paul is imprisoned in Jerusalem, when a group of over 40 young men take an oath not to eat until they have killed him. They plan to request him to be taken for an audience at the Sanhedrin, and to ambush it en route. Paul's nephew hears of the plot, tips off the military commander, and Paul is extricated at night to Caesarea to foil their plot.

A little more from David Gooding’s book, True to the Faith (paid link).

Why is the section from Acts 19:21-28:31 so long, taking about a third of the book?

Because on trial is not just the question of whether Paul took a Gentile into the temple, but the gospel itself, and Paul as apostle to the Gentiles.

I have long found David Gooding's book, True to the Faith (paid link), a really helpful look at the book of Acts, mapping out how Luke's story unfolds and how it teaches us in the process.

As I look at chapters 19-28, he introduces his section on this with the following really helpful paragraph (page 338 in my 1990 edition; I'm not sure how much material has been added by the currently in-print 2013 edition to move the page numbers on):

I'm preparing to preach on Mark 13 in a couple of Sundays time, and find myself once again reaching for R T France's excellent commentary on Mark (paid link).

I'm greatly enjoying reading Against Principalities and Powers: Spiritual Beings in Relation to Communal Identity and the Moral Discourse of Ephesians (paid link) by Daniel Darko (published 2020 by Hippo Books).

He explores the significance of the spiritual powers in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, suggesting that we in the West often don't feel the full force of the letter's message because we are not atuned to see this as important.

This blog is many things, but one of them is a kind of commonplace book where I can jot things I want to find later, but done in a public blog because the things I want to find later may help others too.

On Tuesday, I posted some thoughts on why John records the miraculous catch of fish in John 21.