What is true of Christian agency in general is true of Christian interpretive agency in particular: faith works through love (Gal 5:6). “Love asks; love seeks; love knocks; love reveals; love, finally, remains in what has been revealed.”[1] Love’s quest for understanding is fulfilled by giving attention to Holy Scripture: “Hear, O Israel” (Deut 6:4). […]
The burning bush and the being of God: reflections on Exodus 3
I’m looking forward to delivering the Day-Higginbotham Lectures next week at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. (For more details, see here.) The theme of the two lectures is “God, the Bible, and Being.” By way of preview, below is an excerpt from the second lecture. The excerpt focuses on the ways God’s […]
On Christian hope: an Advent meditation on Psalms 42 & 43
Hope is an ordinary part of human agency. When we judge that the circumstances are right, and that we have sufficient resources of strength to act, we embark on a specific course of action in hope of completing it. We go to the grocery store, expecting that it will have the ingredients we need to […]
Notes on Book IV of the Psalter
One of my long-term research projects is a book on the divine attributes. The operating methodological thesis of the project is that learning to speak rightly of God (theology) requires learning to read the Bible rightly (hermeneutics). Related to that project, below are some notes, summarized under six headings, that I’ve put together on how […]
Reading Scripture in faith, love, and hope
Over the past several weeks I’ve taken up a research topic that I haven’t worked on directly in several years, namely, theological interpretation of Scripture. My specific focus has been the place of the “rule of faith” in biblical interpretation. Since at least the second century, the rule of faith has functioned, among other things, […]
Oliver O’Donovan on good biblical interpretation
I’ve been re-reading Oliver O’Donovan’s trilogy on moral theology over the past few weeks (see here, here, and here). These volumes are an example of Christian theology at its best: deeply informed by scriptural exegesis, conversant with a wide-range of classical and contemporary theological and philosophical resources, profound in theological judgment, elegant in architectonic structure. […]
