Women!
My current project is a commentary on the Pastoral Epistles—1 & 2 Timothy and Titus.
Not surprisingly, one of the major struggles I face is with 1 Timothy 2:11–15, Paul’s exhortation regarding the role and behavior of women in the corporate setting of the church. Its 51 words (in the Greek text) have generated at least 652 journal articles (that I found listed in a theological database), not counting the quires, reams, bundles, bales, and pallets of paper that
Stop!
You’ve been on those before. Escalators. Going up. Going down. Especially those long ones at airports and subways that take you up or down multiple levels.
And you, no doubt, being the respectable citizen that you are, abide by the unwritten rule that faster walkers are to be allowed the left side, and so you, being in no hurry, endowed with patience and respect, move to the right and stick to your place. (In the United States, that is. Reversed in other parts of the
Help?
It is said that toward the end of the nineteenth century, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel awoke one morning to read his own obituary in the local newspaper: “The merchant of death is dead. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, who died yesterday, devised a way for more people to be killed in a war than ever before, and he died a very rich man.”
Apparently, it was Alfred’s older brother who had died; somebody on the paper had bungled the epitaph. Needless to say,
Elixir?
That people don’t want to die, but live forever is well attested.
As a character in the 1975 Woody Allen play, Death, said:
It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”
The first emperor of a united China, Qin Shi Huang, who ruled from 220–210 B.C.E., tried some stunts to keep himself alive (more about that here).
Another report from ye olde country, China, came last October.
A bronze pot was discovered by archaeologists in a
Genesis 39:1−23
Integrity in every situation enables one to be an agent of divine blessing.
Genesis 37:36 makes a seamless connection with 39:1; in 37:36, Joseph is sold (and Egypt is mentioned), and in 39:1, he is bought (and Egypt is mentioned again). In a little more than a decade, the kidnapped slave, Joseph, would rise to be the Prime Minister of all Egypt, second only to the Pharaoh. Andh God’s word to make the descendants of Abraham a blessing to all nations (12:3; 18:18; 22:18;
Humanitarian?
John H. Evans, professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego, discussed his book What is a Human (Oxford University Press) in the magazine New Scientist.
He talked about his research that analyzed survey data from 3,500 U.S. adults that led to a (not so) surprising conclusion: Those who believed humans bear the image of God held more humanitarian attitudes than those who did not.
People act on what they think is true. So Evans wanted to boil down the
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.