Category Archives: wisdom literature

Wise Expenditure of Energy

anger, translation, wisdom literature

“A fool expends all his [sic] energy,                                                                                                               but a wise person keeps it in reserve” (Prov 29:11, my trans.)

To paraphrase the Bible: Experience teaches the aging and aged that some expenditures of energy simply do not merit the cost.

In January a few years ago, a colleague and I attended a conference in the Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida.  We had made our flight arrangements separately, but ended up booked for the same return flight. I reached the airport first and went to the kiosk to print out my boarding pass. The kiosk computer informed me that I needed to consult a ticket Continue reading Wise Expenditure of Energy →

Biblical Humanism

Acts, free will, Genesis, imago Dei, Ruth, Tamar, wisdom literature

“The world come of age is more god-less and perhaps just because of that closer to God than the world not yet come of age.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letter dated 18 July 1944

Years ago, when I was interim pastor of a small church in Tennessee, a woman in the church stopped me in the hallway between Sunday School and worship to ask for prayer.  I am terrible with names, so, anticipating that she had news of illness, death, or difficulty in the life of a church member, family member, or friend, I took out the note pad I kept in my Continue reading Biblical Humanism →

There is a Wildness in God’s Mercy

Christian faith, cosmology, creation, Job, science and religion, sovereignty, Uncategorized, wisdom literature, Worship

Job 41:12

The results of the newly released Pew Research Center survey of the influence of religion on the everyday lives of Americans reveals that those who pray daily and worship weekly also participate in extended family life, engage in charitable giving or service, and report that they are “happy” in significantly greater degrees than the “non-religious” segment of Continue reading There is a Wildness in God’s Mercy →

Poor Happens

covenant, deuteronomy/deuteronomism, ethics, Jesus, Job, poverty, sin, wisdom literature

And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” (John 9:2 NAS)

Poverty is not (proof of) sin.  Poverty is not a character flaw.  Poverty happens to people.

John’s Gospel records an episode in Jesus’ ministry in which his disciples revealed their sadly respectable conventionality.  Two prominent strands of theological tradition running throughout the Old Testament converged in their question concerning the identity of the sinner responsible for an unfortunate man’s blindness.

Continue reading Poor Happens →