aBeLOG
Welcome to the aBeLOG, a series of (hopefully!) fortnightly posts on all matters homiletical. I intend to touch on whatever grabs my attention regarding preaching—issues contemporary and ancient, ideas hermeneutical and rhetorical, personalities conservative and liberal, publications antiquarian and avant-garde. Essentially, I’m going to follow my own homiletical olfactory instincts up rabbit trails and after red herrings. Comments are always invited and appreciated.
Psalm 2:1–12
The refusal of rebelling, conspiring, or opposing rulers anywhere to submit reverentially to divine rule, the scope and extent of which has no bounds, meets with an appropriate response—dismissive, dreadful, and destructive—from God and his personally appointed Son-King with whom he is closely identified.
Psalm 2 is carefully structured with four stanzas of three verses each. Remarkably, there are also four specific references to deity’s representative, once in each
Psalm 1:1–6
The fertile stasis of the righteous—constant, affective intercourse with divine revelation, the outcome of which is fruitfulness—results in the blessing of divine care of their ways; but the futile kinesis of the wicked, the outcome of which is fruitlessness, results in divine judgment, the destruction of their ways.
The Psalter is a book of songs, but Psalm 1 is hardly a representative of that genre. Rather, it is a composition commenting on how life works in God’s
Titus 3:1–15
Behavior in society involves submission to authority, and utmost consideration for all people, avoiding all ungody and fractious behavior (and persons), as believers engage in good works, demonstrating the same kindness and love for mankind that God had for them.
In this text, “good works” (3:1, 8, 14; and when examined across the New Testament they include “works” of thought, work, and deed) deals with behavior in society. So Christians are to live a godly life
Titus 2:1–15
God’s people of irrespective of age, gender, and social standing, demonstrate exemplary godliness within community in word and in deed—grounded in the work of God in Christ redeeming people for his own—for the enhancement of the reputation of God and the furtherance of his economy.
“But you” (2:1)—an emphatic construction—signals a contrast between what the false teachers have been doing (1:10–16) and what Titus is to do (2:1–10, 15). After labeling the
Titus 1:1–16
Godly, blameless stewards of the church, who hold firmly the word God in their lives and their teaching, exhort and reprove rebellious false teachers in the church who, engaging in deceptive teaching and upset households, are detestable in God’s eyes.
Titus 1:1–4, is a single sentence: sixty-five words in the Greek text. “Faith” and “truth [for godliness]” seem to be the focus of this salutation, appropriate for a letter to Cretan Christians who are going to
2 Timothy 4:1–22
The people of God solemnly preach God’s word at every opportunity, despite opposition and suffering, as they follow the example of godly leaders, asserting their lifelong faithfulness to God and to their ministries, confident of ultimate deliverance and eternal rewards.
It is apparent that the entire pericope is written with much emotion, expressing the characteristics of the apostle’s “last will and testament.”
While there are five second person imperatives in 4:2—“preach,”
Tough Question: Imprecate?
Here’s another “Answer to a Tough Question” that I did for The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recently: What do Christians do today with the imprecations of the Psalter?
[And for more details, go to the Introduction in the first volume of my commentary on the Psalms: Psalms 1–44 here.]
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.