Exegesis: The transfiguration of Jesus in Mark 9

This paper seeks to expound the passage of Mark 9:2-13 concerning the transfiguration of Jesus and the fulfilment of Malachi 4:5 in John the Baptist as Elijah. The principal point of this text is the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God (v7). The story is paralleled in Matthew 17:1-13 and Luke 9:28-36.

More about God's Name

I have published on the Name of the LORD before, once in an exegesis of Exodus 6:1-7 (God's Name revealed) and once in Hashem: What's in a Name?  This assignment was supposed to be on the names (plural) of God, but as usual I ended up focusing on 'the Name' because this really is it. God has revealed himself to us by one principal Name, and it is the only Name by which we may be saved!

What I really liked about this study was the Christology, the fact that Jesus has been given the Name above all names - not 'Jesus' (Saviour), but the Name of the Father. I've also discussed the important matter of having the Name removed from all our Bibles and replaced with the very bland "the LORD".

The cry of the crowds to Jesus at his final arrival in Jerusalem was a well-recognised Hebrew greeting reserved for the Messiah: בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא בְּשֵׁם יהוה (Blessed is he who comes in the Name of the LORD!) Ironically, though they acknowledged Jesus as YHWH’s Anointed One, they did not grasp the double entendre – he who comes in the Name of YHWH is YHWH.

I hope you enjoy this essay on this literally vital topic.

Hebrew word study: מִן (min) - 'from'

It's amazing just how much one can discover in the use of a single, ordinary word. Last year I did a study on the Hebrew word for from, מִן (pronounced min). Non-Hebrew scholars may be interested in the last paragraph concerning "grace" (as in giving thanks for a meal). From what I can tell, the popular notion in the charismatic movement (and others) of blessing the food is not Biblical. Jesus and his tradition would bless the LORD, giving thanks for the meal.

Here's the study.

Using the Psalms in pastoral care

This is an assignment I did on the use of the Psalms in pastoral care. It starts with a great poem by Yehuda Amichai, Summer Evening by the Window with the Psalms, which begins:

Close scrutiny of the past.
How my soul yearns within me like those souls
in the nineteenth century before the great wars,
like curtains that want to pull free
of the open window and fly.

I used an online tool to generate a "word cloud" of the top 70 words in the New English Translation, and it looks like this:

Here's the whole assignment.

God's Name revealed

This paper is an exegesis of Exodus 6:1-7 in which God makes himself known by his name, YHWH, to Moses and promises that He will deliver this people from slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt...

The whole passage is dominated by God’s repeated self-disclosure: “I am YHWH”. This is one of the most significant events in the Bible for, though God has many “names” in the Bible, the others are really just titles and descriptors. YHWH, however, may be regarded as his unique, personal Name that is to treated as sacred and never used in vain (Ex 20:7; Dt 5:11). The Name is believed to be related to the verb הָיָה (haya, to be) and hence God’s earlier answer to Moses’ question, “If... they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?” (Ex 3:13). God’s reply was “I will be who I will be” or, “I am who I am” (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה), and that “I will be”, or “I am”, is sending Moses.

For the full assignment, click here.

Science and Creation, Faith and Truth

This is an essay I wrote in 2010 on the topic of The Christian Belief in Creation.

This paper reviews some key points in the science-faith debate. Rather than attempting to evaluate different interpretations of the biblical creation motif, only one is presented – one that best fits the science and without violating the Bible. What is the rationale for starting with science instead of the Bible? The Bible primarily tells us the story of the relationship between God and Man. Its purpose is to redeem humanity and to glorify God, not to explain scientific facts. Nevertheless our initial assumption is that both science and scripture are good and they glorify God.

For the whole essay, click here.

Book Review: Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism

The book review below is something I wrote that was published in The South African Baptist Journal of Theology, 2010, volume 19. The book reviewed is Mark Kinzer's Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism: redefining Christian engagement with the Jewish people, published by Brazos Press in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2005 (ISBN 9781587431524). Kinzer works at the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute.

Post-Missionary, in Kinzer’s jargon, does not suggest an end for missions. Rather, Kinzer promotes a post-missionary form of Messianic Judaism which reaches out to Jews in a different manner to the traditional missionary approach. Instead of converting Jews to Christianity and instructing them to abandon “all things Jewish”, Kinzer promotes helping Jews to discover the Jewish Messiah within their Jewish faith, its practices, history, scriptures—and among the practising Jewish community.