Narrative musings on the Last Judgement in Matthew

Reading a story as a story can be a beautiful thing! (With this, I don’t mean to imply that things aren’t necessarily true; I’m just referring to the concept of narratology – yes, it’s a word – where one looks at the characters, plot, scenery, action, etc. of a story.) The same can be said [...]

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Oh, be silent demon, people are speaking here!

So, here’s another one of those posts. Bear with me, even though I mention the word “Greek”, this is more like Greek-extra-lite. With a “to the side”. Seriously. There’s this thing in Greek. It’s called the genitive absolute, and mark my words, it’s absolutely fabulous. I’ve been trying to point this out to students, but, [...]

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Righteousness? Ooh, that’s a wicked freebie! Can I get two please?

I was recently challenged by Cobus to write a more quotidian (just kidding) mundane (oops, did it again, sorry – I’m failing this challenge, it seems) – anyway, to write a more understandable conclusion to a previous post. Apparently, not everyone is really into the inner workings of Greek grammar. How strange.  So, here goes. Ever [...]

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Paul’s view on righteousness – sharing in Christ’s resurrection and suffering? (Phil 3:10)

Sermon preparation can lead to some interesting stuff! In this case, it got me wondering about Philippians 3:10 – and whether Paul could possibly consider “righteousness” (δικαιοσύνη) to be equal to sharing in Christ’s resurrection and suffering. (If you’re not the geeky Greek-for-breakfast type of person that I assume you are, you may skip the [...]

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A pond as metaphor for Bible reading

Reading the Bible is like looking into a pond. In some places, the water is all murky; in other places, the water is quite clear. In yet some other places, the rocks and pebbles at the bottom of the pond have shifted. More importantly, when one looks into the pond, one sees a reflection of [...]

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Stellenbosch Conferences

I am reading a paper in about a week’s time at the SA Association for the Study of the LXX’s Conference in Stellenbosch. The title of this paper is: “Reading ‘Bel and the Dragon’ as Narrative: a comparison between the Old Greek and Theodotion.“ The abstract reads as follows: This paper investigates the narrative character [...]

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‘Sinning’ in the interpretation of the eucharist

In many contexts and formularies of the church, the Eucharist has been linked with sin and the forgiveness thereof. Being perchance under the spell of the conversation with Scot McKnight a few of us South Africans had the privilege to be part of, I began pondering on this connection. (Professor McKnight’s lecture can be downloaded as an [...]

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Notes on ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ in the New Testament

 While reading 1 Corinthians 6, I started wondering about a few things. This is the result – keep in mind that I’ve only grabbed resources I had handy. The phrase ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (“the kingdom of (the) God”) – both nouns with the article – occurs 64 times in the New Testament, according to [...]

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