For All It's Worth

Professor Jeremy Begbie has written a masterful article on the Confessing Church and the Nazis to which his last three theological points are worth the entire article: http://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/anvil/02-2_117.pdf

Here a few notable books I've been reading recently: You will surely know Winner from her previous books, some of which are entitled, Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity, Mudhouse Sabbath, and Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis.   This is a rather deep look about ways in which we meet God that are out of the ordinary or ways in which we past over that are very easily unidentifiable.  The chapter on Smell is illuminating and challenging to say the least.  Quoting from George Orwell and others, Lauren peers into our hearts that allow smell to distance us from becoming friends with others.  She writes, "Perhaps if smelling is to be a part of my relationship with God, I might start here: trying to unlearn whatever I have been taught about the relationship of smell to virtue, trying to notice how I let smell become a barrier between me and people who might be my friends (89)."  With quotes from spiritual guides and thinkers to wisdom from her own experience...

A Commentary on the Manuscripts and Text of the New Testament by Philip Wesley Comfort Longtime scholar of ancient biblical manuscripts, Dr. Comfort has been an authority on textual manuscript traditions for many years.  Here, in this updated edition, his A Commentary on the Manuscripts and Text of the New Testament is a welcome addition to the growing field of textual studies.  What do you find in such a commentary?  For one, Comfort introduces the reader to the extant papyrus manuscripts we have of the New Testament, namely the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, the Chester Beatty Papyri, and the Bodmer Papyri.  Also, Comfort reasons that the earliest manuscript evidence is generally followed, “documentary evidence has pride of place (31).” One of the most significant sections of the book for me was Comfort’s elucidation concerning nomina sacra in the NT. Comfort writes, “The earliest copies of the New Testament writings (perhaps some of the autographs t...