[Editorial note: This essay was originally written in late April—right after I filed my taxes. (Maybe that’s why I was thinking about Armageddon!) A couple of weeks ago our Sunday school teacher talked about Armageddon and offered a very different etymological meaning for the word. I don’t agree with him on this point, but I …
Continue reading Inventing a Word when Existing Words Will Not Do
I suspect I’ve been thinking about the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (Rev 19:9-10) all wrong. To be honest, I’ve not thought much about this feast at all; it’s simply one of the things that are part of the end of Revelation. What struck me in my current study of the book is the brevity …
Saul (that is, the Apostle Paul before Jesus Christ gave him his Christian name on the road to Damascus) was a rather remarkable and faithful Hebrew who, in other circumstances, we would probably want to emulate. He described himself as a “Hebrew born of Hebrews: as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a …
Continue reading An Exploration of How Paul Knew what he Knew
The juxtaposition of Sunday’s daily lectionary Old Testament and New Testament readings is striking. In the Old Testament Job is getting his lecture from God in Job 38. God is telling him that Job does not know God’s ways and neither could he accomplish God’s tasks if he did. Do you know the dwelling place …
The Apocalypse, or Book of Revelation, is addressed to the seven churches of Asia Minor. These were essentially John's congregations. Asia Minor is now part of Turkey and these lands are now overwhelmingly Muslim. None of these churches exist any longer. In the church in which I grew up and the Bible College I attended …
Continue reading Whatever Happened to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor?
Just Another Jim 