James's Weblog

Why not join me in being built up by reading Peter Leithart's exhortation on Paul's instruction to rejoice in the Lord always. Always? Yes - always. …

http://www.leithart.com/2009/12/13/joy-at-his-coming/

Darrell Bock cautions:

“The shepherds are often characterised as representing the ‘downtrodden and despised’ of society, so that the first proclamation of the gospel is said to have come to sinners. … There are two problems with reading the shepherds as symbols of the hated. First the rabbinic evidence is late, coming from the fifth century. More importantly, shepherd motifs in the Bible are mostly positive. … Thus, the presence of the shepherds is not a negative point. Rather, they picture the lowly and humble who respond to God’s message.” (page 214)

G B Caird is helpful, as ever, in his comments on Luke's account of the birth of Jesus:

It is a joy to discover Sam Allberry has a blog. He has a particularly excellent post on there with some very important reminders for those of us who lead public prayer in church. Check them out at: http://allberry.blogspot.com/2009/09/public-prayer.html

I recently received an e-mail asking about how you work out what the "meter" for a hymn is, and how you go about finding a tune that fits the words of a particular hymn.

In case my reply helps anybody else, here's what I said:

Doug Wilson says some very helpful things about getting major issues and minor issues the right way around in theology.

Specifically, how sad – and how serious – when people take a minor issue (one on which we may quite respectably agree to disagree) and turn it into a major issue (one on which we do not have the latitude to disagree). As Wilson argues, at that point the issue has to become a major one on both sides. It is a major issue to mis-classify a minor issue as major.

I'm greatly enjoying spending some time in Paul's letter to the Philippians, in preparation for the first of our new quarterly combined services. The two churches (Kemsing and Woodlands) will come together for a shared Communion service 4 times a year. I am really looking forward to the occasion. In many respects, the two churches are very different. However the riches we share in Christ are many, and this quarterly celebration will be the chance to rejoice in that and to commit afresh to serving together in holding out the word of Christ. For that reason, we will be looking at the letter of Philippians when we get together in this way, and that starts this coming Sunday.

As I've been looking at Philippians, I've discovered just what a fine commentary Peter O'Brien's one is.

At the end of his introduction, he has a section on the purpose of the letter. He shows how Paul's purpose in writing develops in 4 ways, and then sums up what he has said in a single paragraph (page 38):

Wayne Grudem is very helpful in his Systematic Theology on what we mean when we refer to "the word of God".

He points out on pages 47-48 that "the word of God" can refer, in Scripture, to the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It can also refer to God's speech in 4 forms: 1. His decrees; 2. His words of personal address; 3. His speech through human lips, and 4. His words in written form, for us the Bible.

R T France is very helpful on what Jesus expects of his disciples. He comments on Mark 10:

Peter Leithart makes a wonderful observation about Jacob, Esau and Joseph.

He says this:

Esau is a “hairy man” (sa’iyr), something we learn only when Jacob dresses himself in goat hair to approach his father (Genesis 27:11, 23). Jacob becomes a hairy one, subbing in for his brother. The only other use of the word in Genesis is in 37:31, where it describes the “kid” killed to fool into thinking that Joseph has died. Both passages involve substitution, and both involve deception of a father.