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 1:1–2:5
Faithfulness to God manifest in uncompromising godliness and reliance on God brings blessing.
Joshua, the one who had begun to lead the Israelites so successfully against the Canaanites, and who was God’s agent for assigning land to the various tribes, was now gone. An era had concluded with the death of Joshua. A new beginning was at hand, and with it the challenge of finding godly leaders. Who would be the next godly servant to lead Israel? The Israelites do not ask
Judges: Introduction
This is the first in a series of posts on each pericope of Judges, essentially a distillation of what is in my Judges commentary (more on that here).
The verb “to judge” does not always indicate a judicial functionary. In Judges, the function of these God-raised leaders is best as seen as military judge-deliverers, as indicated in 2:16–17:
And Yahweh raised up judges
who delivered them from the hands of those who plundered them.
Judges 2:16–17
The book is gory, with
Ephesians 6:10–24
Victory against supernatural foes is achieved by divine empowerment in the form of God’s armor (commitment and dependence upon God) and by Spirit-driven prayer.
It is not surprising that “power” occurs a number of times in this pericope: believers are “empowered” (Eph 6:10), so that they “may be able/may have power” (6:11) to stand against the devil, thus “being able/having power” (6:13) to resist in the evil day, and “being able/having power” (6:16)
Ephesians 6:1–9
Children obey their parents and parents gently instruct their children, and slaves obey their masters with sincerity and masters treat their slaves likewise as they both serve God—all furthering unity and promising reward.
The theme of submission in this text is the extension of the fifth verb (participle)—“submitting”—that qualifies “filling by the Spirit” (Eph 5:18). We see instructions to those in authority (parents, employers) and to those under
Ephesians 5:21–33
The filling by the Spirit manifests in the mutual submission of believers, and in the modeling of the husband–wife relationship after the Christ–church relationship.
“Submitting” in Ephesians 5:21 is the fifth verb (participle) that is dependent upon the main verb “be filled’ (in 5:18); the other four were: “speaking,” “singing,” “making melody,” and “giving thanks” (dealt with in the previous text, 5:1–20). What is called for here is mutual
Ephesians 5:1–20
The imitation of God and Christ’s selfless love call for abandonment of sexual immorality, and the adoption of a wise and worshipful lifestyle.
Here we are explicitly told what the walk of believers entails: the walk “in love,” the imitation of God and of Christ, who loved with a love beyond compare. Having Jesus Christ as both the ground and model of love (Eph 5:2), such self-sacrificial love is to be the mark of believers, the “beloved” children of God (5:1).
After
Biblical Foundations Podcast
I was interviewed some time ago on Biblical Foundations Podcast by my friend, Dr. Andreas Köstenberger of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Here’s our conversation on hermeneutics and preaching (in two parts):
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.