Selected Reading

I read these recently and recommend them to you.

Bible Study

3 Steps to understanding a tricky passage
“So you are reading your Bible, and you come across a passage a verse that you are having a hard time understanding. It seems like a straight-forward reading of it would contradict what the Bible teaches elsewhere, or at the very least it seems like the passage teaches something unusual. What should you do?”

Christian History

Hymn Reflection: Now Thank We All Our God
After the Thirty Year’s War, Martin Rinkart wrote a hymn. “What kind of song could come out of such tragedy? A lament? A plea for vindication? A cry for mercy?” An imprecatory song? 

None of the above. “Instead, Rinkart wrote a hymn of gratitude.” 

Anne Dutton and Her Reasons for Writing
The story of Anne Dutton, who was yet another intelligent, wise, and strong historical Christian woman: “Anne was described as a lively and outspoken girl. Over the course of her life, she combined this zeal and candor with her natural clarity of thought and expression in order to provide Scriptural encouragement and advice.”

But not everyone approved. Some questioned the propriety of her work: “Was it proper for a woman to provide counsel to others – men included – especially when this counsel was published for all to read?” 

Christian Living

What Is Real Repentance?
“We enter the Christian life through repentance and we remain in the Christian life through repentance.”

Then we need to know what repentance is, don’t we?

Seasonal

The Reason Why Americans Refer to Autumn as Fall
Here’s the story behind the two English language names for this season. (Canadians use fall, too, so I guess it’s a North American phenomenon.)

Theological Term of the Week: Mirror-Reading

mirror-reading
“A way of reading a New Testament passage that assumes that what the author writes reflects a problem or situation confronting the original audience.”1

• From How to Understand and Apply the New Testament by Andrew David Naselli:

Sometimes [a New Testament] author is writing to Christians about an error that false teachers are propagating in their midst. So our job is to read the text very carefully, over and over, and try to discern the nature of that error and what the antidote is. That kind of mirror-reading is not only good; it’s necessary because otherwise you won’t accurately understand a passage. This is especially important for books such as 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians, and 1 John. You can be more confident that you are mirror-reading in a responsible way when the author specifically refers to problems in the church. Paul does this in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 and all throughout the letter. He doesn’t need to lay out in great detail what the problems were because the Corinthians were already acquainted with their situation. But we are not the Corinthians, so we must responsibly read 1 Corinthians over and over and over in order to look for clues about their situation.

That’s how to mirror-read well: carefully read a book of the New Testament over and over and over. Look for clues in the text that tip you off to the situation. That’s a good and necessary way to read the New Testament.

• From Moises Silva in Introduction to Biblical Hemeneutics:2

The question is not whether we should read between the lines, but how we should do it. Certainly, the more an interpretation depends on inferences (as opposed to explicit statements in the text), the less persuasive it is. If a historical reconstruction disturbs (rather than reinforces) the apparent meaning of a passage, we should be skeptical of it. In contrast, if a scholar proposes a reconstruction that arises out of the text itself, and if that reconstruction in turn helps to make sense of difficult statements in the text, we need not reject it on the grounds that it is just a theory.

Learn more:

1. Andy Naselli: Mirror Reading
2. Andy Naselli: Is ‘Background Information’ Ever Necessary to Understand the Bible?

Related terms:

• biblical hermeneutics
• eisegesis
• epistle
• exegesis

1 From How to Understand and Apply the New Testament by Andrew David Naselli.

2 As quoted in How to Understand and Apply the New Testament by Andrew David Naselli.

Filed under Scripture

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Sunday's Hymn: Like a River Glorious

Like a river glorious
Is God’s perfect peace,
Over all victorious
In its bright increase;
Perfect, yet it floweth
Fuller ev’ry day,
Perfect, yet it groweth
Deeper all the way.

Stayed upon Jehovah,
Hearts are fully blest,
Finding, as he promised,
Perfect peace and rest.

Hidden in the hollow
Of his blessed hand,
Never foe can follow,
Never traitor stand;
Not a surge of worry,
Not a shade of care,
Not a blast of hurry
Touch the spirit there.

Ev’ry joy or trial
Falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial
By the Sun of Love.
We may trust him fully
All for us to do;
They who trust him wholly
Find him wholly true.

—Frances Havergal

 Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

• When We All Get to Heaven at The Happy Wonderer
• All the Superlatives in the World Couldn’t Describe Him at The Outspoken Tulip
• Broad Rivers and Streams at Tried With Fire
• Lord’s Day 37, 2019 at The Thirsty Theologian