Interpretation articles from April 1998

Interpretation archives from April 1998

The family in the Old Testament.
April 1, 1998... The modern Western term "family" does not have an exact equivalent in the Old Testament, and the reason is that the two societies in question - modern Western and ancient Near Eastern - have different ways of defining kinship and social identity....

Living as families in the light of the New Testament.
April 1, 1998... The wrong question to ask initially when reflecting on how to live as families in the light of the New Testament is, What does the New Testament say about the family? This is the wrong question, not because there are no texts that talk about the...

A question of families. (family-related issues discussed in the Bible)
April 1, 1998... This essay will explore four responses to the issue of the Bible and contemporary challenges facing the family, moving from negative to positive. First, I will outline some ways in which the Bible constitutes a problem for the contemporary...

Pastoral care of diverse families.
April 1, 1998... A central task of pastors and congregations is to interpret and respond with strategically appropriate care to the diverse types of families in their midst. Pastors and congregations have a natural organic relationship to families, throughout the...

Genesis 44:18-34. (Biblical analysis)
April 1, 1998... Genesis 44:18-34 In his masterpiece A Death in the Family, James Agee weaves a tale of the power of kinship in the midst of loss. Jay Follet, husband and father of two young children, is killed in an auto accident in Knoxville in 1915. The...

Ruth 2:1-13. (Biblical analysis)
April 1, 1998... The more things change, the more they stay the same, or so the saying goes. And so it was for Naomi and Ruth. Despite a change of address from Moab to Bethlehem, the same old problems and uncertainties continued to plague the lives of these two...

Luke 2:41-52. (Biblical analysis)
April 1, 1998... This passage comes at the end of the infancy narratives that introduce Luke's Gospel. Raymond Brown calls the infancy narratives "worthy vehicles of the Gospel message" and "the essential Gospel story in miniature." The first two chapters of...

Philemon 1:1-25. (Biblical analysis)
April 1, 1998... Reading the letter to Philemon is not unlike overhearing one end of an animated and lively telephone conversation; the half we hear whets our appetite to know more. In a similar fashion, one may finish the letter with a longing to know the rest...

Covenant and Commitments: Faith, Family, and Economic Life.
April 1, 1998... Stackhouse, a leading figure in contemporary theological ethics and a major voice in Christian social ethics, is also one of the foremost advocates for public theology. In Covenant and Commitments, he makes a signal contribution to current...

New Testament Ethics: The Legacies of Jesus and Paul.
April 1, 1998... Although different in scope and method, these are two extremely valuable books for anyone interested in the ethical message of the New Testament. Matera opens with a brief review of approaches to New Testament ethics in recent scholarship. The...

The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation; a Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics.
April 1, 1998... Although different in scope and method, these are two extremely valuable books for anyone interested in the ethical message of the New Testament. Matera opens with a brief review of approaches to New Testament ethics in recent scholarship. The...

Law, Legend, and Incest in the Bible.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... The legal stipulations in Leviticus 18-20 have historically presented a conundrum to interpreters. The particular combination of statutes in these chapters has eluded a holistic explanation. Carmichael takes a fresh approach to the problem. He...

The Family in Theological Perspective.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... This collection of essays addresses the theme of the "family" from various theological angles. There are eighteen essays in all: seven from specialists on biblical and historical perspectives and eleven on faith, the family, and the modern world....

The Church of Christ: A Biblical Ecclesiology for Today.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... Pastors and theologians who seek to ground their views of the church in biblical teaching will find help in Ferguson's thorough exposition. The title highlights two key themes and assumptions. First, since Christ "gives existence, meaning, and...

Yahweh - the Patriarch: Ancient Images of God and Feminist Theology.
April 1, 1998... When a senior male European biblical scholar ponders divine inclusiveness, something new and interesting has happened. Gerstenberger uses historical-critical study of the Hebrew Bible coupled with hermeneutical and theological reasoning to...

Sex, Gender, and Christian Ethics.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... Cahill, a Roman Catholic moral theologian whose work on sexuality and other topics is finding an appreciative response well beyond Catholicism, offers a constructive approach to sexuality, one indebted to New Testament models of community that...

The Character of Our Communities: Toward an Ethic of Liberation for the Church.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... Albrecht unlocks a secret hidden in Stanley Hauerwas's ethics that has eluded other interpreters. The secret is that for all of Hauerwas's polemics against modern liberalism and its fragmenting and violent effects, his own communal ethics is an...

Being Church, Becoming Community.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... Buchanan believes mainline churches are in trouble. Drawing upon his experience at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, he emphasizes the local congregation as the most important intersection between church and world. If the world is the...

A Brief History of the Presbyterians.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... Lefferts Loetscher first published A Brief History of the Presbyterians in 1938. Through three subsequent editions (one of them edited by George L. Hunt after Loetscher's death), the book enjoyed a long and useful life. Yet there comes a time...

Exporting the American Gospel: Global Christian Fundamentalism.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... The authors of this book apply the label "fundamentalism" to the form of popular Protestantism that has developed in the United States around the televangelists. They offer a sociological analysis of the way in which this religious subculture is...

Jews and Christians: In Pursuit of Social Justice.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... Fifty years after Auschwitz, Jewish-Christian relations continue to improve slowly but surely. This book is further evidence of the ongoing discussion, and of the importance of this concern. The authors aim to probe the literary basis for "Jewish...

Faithful Change: The Personal and Public Challenges of Postmodern Life.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... This latest effort by one of the major figures in the area of faith development theory explores the meaning of Christian faith in a postmodern world. Part one contains an introduction to various theories on human development, including the...

Preaching the Hard Sayings of Jesus.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... Ever since the division between "exegesis" and "exposition" in the old Interpreter's Bible, preachers have longed for a book that would bring exegetical spadework and homiletical speech-work together. With this book, the father and son team of...

A Relevant Word: Communicating the Gospel to Seekers.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... I invited a young adult class to assist me in reviewing the first two chapters of Duffett's book. An undisputed "Amen" arose as he described our world: post-agricultural revolution, post-industrial revolution, mid-informational revolution. "Every...

Korean Preaching: An Interpretation.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1998... This is the first book published in English to introduce Korean preaching - and preaching in the Korean-American church - to American church leaders. The author aims to raise awareness about preaching in the Korean-American church. Lee affirms...