Over the next several months, I will be addressing the problem of the shallow impact of many teaching ministries in our churches and ways that we might “Teach Deeper” for greater openness to God’s transforming work. In this first blog I pose some questions about why some of our teaching ministries seem to bear limited fruit and how we might better approach our teaching ministries.
How do you introduce the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther in under 1,000 words—plus a picture or two? His life, his works, his doctrines, his impact? One standard biography (Brecht) runs 1,300 pages. I might omit a few things, but here goes.
Don’t gimme no theology. Just gimme the Bible! Ever heard someone say that? Well, at times theology comes in handy. That might sound like a no-brainer coming from a pastor/seminary professor, but as a historian I much prefer interpreting a biblical passage in its historical and literary context (my task as a New Testament scholar) to systematizing various portions of Scripture around a single theological truth (the task of a theologian).
Fear can be rational or irrational. That said, there's a 'sense' in which it doesn't always matter whether one's fear is rational or not. That's because even if a particular fear happens to be irrational, that doesn't necessarily make it any less troubling. In fact, irrationality doesn't "negate" fear in the least-- and, in some cases, it can even breed terror.
Students often ask me about a saying from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: “… if your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matthew 6:22-23). It’s an interesting saying to study, because it requires us to look carefully at the context, at the Old Testament background, and at some unusual Greek and Hebrew idioms. More importantly, once the passage is understood clearly, it illuminates a key kingdom principle.
Biola University