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.
Judges 5:1–31
Participation in the endeavors of God, as he fights for his people and empowers them, keeps one blessed.
The prose account of Barak’s victory in Judges 4 is completed only by the addition of 5:31b: the statement of the land’s rest. In that sense, the Song of Deborah in 5:1–31a is an interpolation of sorts, with a theological thrust of its own.
Right from the get-go, Yahweh is praised for Israel’s “leaders” and “people” enrolling to fight (5:2). Soon that
Bookstore
The other day, I was interviewed at Southern Seminary’s Bookstore, by its manager, Jacob Percy, about writing, preaching, and whatever else he wanted to ask about.
Here’s the video …
Down Under!
Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Australia, primarily for a Preaching Conference and a Preaching Intensive organized by my friend, Dr. Tim MacBride, at Morling College, in Sydney. He is the Dean of the faculty of Bible and Theology and a preacher and a homiletics scholar (and a musician, and a coffee-connoisseur). We had a lot of good times together, both formal and informal (the latter included visiting the Three Sisters).
More about Tim here.
He recently contributed
Installation!
Quick note: For those interested in watching a livestream of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Convocation Chapel tomorrow, Tuesday, August 23, at 10:00 am US Eastern Time, make your way to this site.
Your faithful blogger is going to be invited up on stage to sign (with a quill pen, no less!) the Seminary’s 150-year-old doctrinal statement, The Abstract of Principles, as well as to be installed as the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching.
Loud
Judges 4:1–24
Fearless faith in God results in blessing.
The Israelites have not learnt a whole lot—they are “continuing” to do evil in Yahweh’s sight (Jdg 4:1). And so Yahweh sells them into the hand of Jabin, the Canaanite king (4:2), and the Israelites cry in desperation (4:3). Same old story.
But the next few elements of the standard paradigm are missing in the Barak narrative. Instead, we have a relentless echo of feminine nouns and suffixes: “Deborah [a feminine
Judges 3:12–31
Integrity, driven by reverence for God and reliance upon him, receives divine approbation.
We are told twice that Israel “did evil in the sight of Yahweh” (Jdg 3:12). So, what’s new? And Yahweh, therefore, empowered Eglon, the king of Moab, against Israel (3:12). Yet God has mercy and he raises up an Israelite deliverer, Ehud (3:15). But quite surprisingly, for the rest of the passage, Yahweh does not seem at all involved with the goings on. And the final victory
Judges 2:6–3:11
Personal experience of God produces unwavering commitment to him and gives him glory.
Judges 2:6–10 is almost identical to Josh 24:28–31, but it weaves the story in its own way for a different theological purpose. Unfortunately, as was seen in Jdg 1:1–2:5, the post-Joshua generation went but did not possess the land for, as 2:10 declares, they did not “know Yahweh, or the deeds which he had done.” And what they did in their abysmal ignorance—and
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.