Here comes the British summer, the season when many bags are packed with shorts, hats, macs, suncream and… books. Topics are many and varied: possibly connected with the holiday destination or a favourite hobby, tales of adventure, detectives or even… chick lit. For those who have busy working lives a spell of ‘down time’ offers …
Who doesn’t love a good feast? We might think of Christmas dinner, Thanksgiving, perhaps a wedding or a graduation feast with friends and family. Personally, the image from ‘The Grinch’ always drifts into mind, where ‘He, he himself…the Grinch…carved the roast-beast!’ Biblically though, feast is one of those words that doesn’t mean what we think …
We all know that Christmas is celebrated differently around the world – and sometimes we mistakenly think that the Jewish celebration of Hannukah is simply their variation of Christmas; it falls at the same time of year. But of course the great majority of Jews never accepted Jesus as Christ, so they don’t celebrate Christmas. …
These three similar sounding words are notoriously confusing. You may recognise ‘the Apocrypha’ as the collection of books founds in Roman Catholic Bibles but not in Protestant Bibles (e.g. Judith, Tobit, Maccabees). They were written during the time between the Old and New Testaments, not considered part of the Hebrew Scriptures – yet they were …
As I write this, the whole of the UK (even including, I suspect, staunch anti-royalists), are out celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – along with Commonwealth Nations, and indeed much of the world. After all, she’s the first and only monarch to reign for 70 (adult) years in recorded history – and what a grand …
Whenever a question of biblical interpretation comes up, the first and foremost consideration must be context. In my days at theological college, the absolute importance of context was drilled into us. So in my very first lecturing role in hermeneutics (interpretation) at Domboshawa College in Zimbabwe, I taught my students to remember the phrase: ‘Context …
I often use the analogy that learning to read the Bible is like learning to drive a car. Driving a car is surprisingly easy – in an open field or a clear road. Anyone can do it. Driving a car in London is another story. The same can be said about the Bible. Anyone can …
What does the Bible say about the end of the world? Absolutely nothing. That phrase is never found in Scripture. So where does the idea come from, and why do I have several books on my shelf with ‘end of the world’ in the title? Jesus frequently speaks of the ‘the end’ – but he’s …
Language is a strange thing. My nose runs and my feet smell – or does my nose smell and my feet run? Who doesn’t love a bit of wordplay? What did the ram say to his wife? I love ewe. Hebrew poetry is rife withwordplay – and poetry makes up over 30% of the Bible. …
We’ve probably all been asked at one time or another, ‘Do you take the Bible literally’? My advice? Never, ever, ever answer that question. Why not? Because the questioner is either naïve, or it’s a trap. The question is simply not legitimate. First, the Bible is not a book. It’s a collection of books – …
