The Book of Ezra records Israel’s return to the land after the Babylonian exile. The first half deals with Zerubbabel’s return and its ramifications (Ezra 1–6) and the second half deals with Ezra’s return and its ramifications (Ezra 7–10). Chapter 7 has a decree by Artaxerxes that gives Ezra permission to return, chapter 8 records the return. Then in chapter 9, Ezra learns that Israel had been intermarrying with pagans and prays and chapter 10 shows how Ezra dealt with this sin. The Book of Nehemiah would have originally been part of the same volume, so chapter 10 would actually be part of a 23-chapter book, though the versification was not added until much later.[Read More]
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How James quoted Amos
At the Jerusalem Council (Acts 19:6–21), James quotes Amos in a way that some have interpreted in a way that sees him spiritualizing promises that God made to Israel and applying them to the church. I do not think that this is what he was doing, though. James was using the plain grammatical-historical method of interpretation, which includes Amos’s original context as well as James’ context in Acts.
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Linguistic Problems with Lordship Salvation in James 2:14–26
Last month, I posted the text and a translation of James 2:14–26. Since then, I have modified the translation and written some commentary that emphasises the article. You can read it below or download the pdf here:
pmiles James 2 translation and commentary
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Retranslating James 2:14–26
People make James 2:14–26 harder than it should be. I think that the main problem is that man naturally wants to earn his own righteousness, so there is a tendency for men to misread biblical texts to make their salvation dependent on themselves.
There are some particularities to the English language that have become difficult in James, so I am offering a retranslation with a few oddities that I think are justified. This translation is part of a soteriology class that I am taking and I will include a commentary in a paper for that class (in other words, I want my professor to poke holes in the commentary it before I share it publicly).[Read More]
What is the Kingdom compared to in the parable of the leaven?
The following is an excerpt from a paper for an upcoming volume on Bible difficulties related to eschatology. This particular paper deals with the parables of the mustard seed and leaven. I take the view that these two parables depict the current evil age rather than the future Messianic kingdom. Part of this reasoning is that leaven typically represents corruption in the Bible. The most common response that I’m hearing is “But the Bible says that the kingdom is like leaven, so leaven must be the good kingdom here.” Here’s my response to that:
I bought a mystery liquid in Poland.
I bought a bottle of mystery liquid in Poland. It was a confusing experience that reminded me of the need to understand cultural context when we read the Bible. So, I talked about it in church.
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