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.
1 Timothy 1:12–20
God’s superabounding grace appoints believers—once sinners, now mercifully saved—into service, to discharge their ministries faithfully.
Paul begins this section exulting with gratitude for divine strengthening, for being considered faithful, for being appointed to service (1:12); for God’s showing of mercy (1:13, 16); for the superabounding of grace along with faith and love in Christ (1:14); and for the demonstration of divine patience in Paul (1:16). The entirety
1 Timothy 1:1–11
The people of God, in their handling of Scripture, promote the economy of God (in contrast to false teachers), for the goal of their instruction is love, the manifestation of godliness.
Timothy is Paul’s “genuine child”—a spiritual sonship. By extension, all God’s people, listening in on/reading this correspondence are enjoined to abide by the injunctions of God’s authoritative apostle. After all, all of God’s people are God’s leaders, in some degree,
Judges 20:1–21:25
Ungodly acts of revenge and godless attempts to remedy past misdeeds onmly lead to more evildoing, wreaking havoc in the community.
The first part of Judges 19–21 described the rape and murder of one Israelite woman—viewed by the nation as a crime. The last part, 20:1–21:25, describes two separate kidnappings/rapes, of four hundred and two hundred Israelite women, respectively—viewed by the nation as acceptable. Chaos reigns and, in the end, the nation spirals into
Judges 19:1–30
An utterly immoral lack of care for the weak and defenseless marks a godless and leaderless community.
Every character in this passage is anonymous—the Levite, his concubine, his father-in-law, his servant, and his host in Gibeah. In a book that often names even its minor characters, this namelessness is unsettling. It literarily points to the disintegration and dehumanization of society in this sordid story. But there is also something worse: deity is also completely
Judges 17:1–18:31
Godless leadership leads to godlessness in society that invites the discipline of God.
Othniel is the perfect model of a judge; Ehud is deceptive; Barak is fearful; Gideon is skeptical and hubristic (and Abimelech is a bloodthirsty butcher—not a judge figure); Jephthah is a manipulator and a child-sacrificer; Samson cannot control his fleshly passions and defects from his calling. It is no wonder, then, that at the end the book of Judges, in the Epilogues (17:1–21:25),
Judges 15:1–16:31
Rebellious disdain of one’s divine calling, expressed in uncontrolled lusts and vengeful actions, can lead to destruction.
At some unspecified time in the recent past, Samson, in a rage, had abandoned his wife (14:20). Now he wants sex—“I will go in to my wife”—and so he decides to make amends. Bearing a goat’s kid (like a box of chocolates, I suppose?), Samson proceeds to his wife’s house (15:2) where he is told that she has been given away to one of his
Judges 13:1–14:20
Though God remains gracious, a devotionless rejection of divine interests in favor of selfish passions leads only to disaster.
Samson is the last judge in the book, and his story gets the most space—four whole chapters and ninety-six verses. The account begins, as usual, with a statement that the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of God (13:1–2). And so they are given over to the Philistines for forty years—the longest oppression on record in Judges.
And, heeeeere’s
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.