We sometimes believe God would listen to us if we could just calm things down a little and finish up the dusting. The patriarchal narratives of Genesis offer no support to such an idea. Hagar’s remarkable interaction with Abraham’s God is unruly from start to finish. Yet the son of this servant of Abraham’s wife [...]
Archive for the ‘textures’ Category
heaven’s unruly engagement: Genesis 16
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Genesis, textures on January 7, 2012 | 2 Comments »
hope, futility, hope: Genesis 5
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Genesis, textures on January 3, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
In the ‘account of Adam’s line’ that appears in Genesis chapter five, the genealogy’s structure assumes the very shape of the human situation. The summary of each individual’s history begins with life and ends with death, this for a race that the narrative presents as deathless until they rebelled against the Creator who blessed them [...]
mixed emotion: Zechariah 12
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, textures, Zechariah on December 28, 2011 | 2 Comments »
The twelfth chapter of the book of Zechariah is timid about neither the Zion-centered nationalism that it celebrates nor the corresponding defanging of the nations that besiege Jerusalem ‘in that day’. To the contrary, the Lord announces through his prophet that he will make Jerusalem ‘a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling’. Then, [...]
ease and unease: Revelation 18, Psalm 146
Posted in textures, tagged biblical interpretation, Psalms, Revelation, textures on December 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The biblical witness privileges the anxiety that we resist. Taking up a motif that is common to the Old Testament prophets, the Book of Revelation celebrates the demise of ‘Babylon’ by mocking the ease in which she had luxuriated. Give her (that is, to Babylon) as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury [...]
speaking truth to power: Daniel 5
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Daniel, textures on November 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Pathetic Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, is that shadowy diminishment of his great father Nebuchadnezzar that is familiar to readers of royal drama. Our phrase ‘the writing is on the wall’—everyone knows what it means—comes from a frightening incident on the last day of this king’s sad, little life. Yet we struggle to recall Belshazzar’s [...]
not many wise: 1 Corinthians 1
Posted in textures, tagged 2 Corinthians, biblical reflection, textures on August 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The Bible maintains a consistently high regard for those human qualities and actions that are noble, elevated, and good. Indeed, it encourages one to view such things in proximity to that dignity or glory which belongs in its purest form only to God. Yet the biblical witness remains unimpressed by the tawdry or ungenuine proxies [...]
no hurry: Proverbs 20
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Proverbs, textures on August 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Those well-intentioned stewards of spiritual humility who make ‘the depravity of man’ their first and central principle fall easily into a rigidity that does not characterize the biblical witness which they claim as their source. Scripture’s own assessment of humankind underscores human dignity and potentiality at the same time as it holds tight to the [...]
get up!: Proverbs 20
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Proverbs, textures on August 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
One could wish, on a sleepy morning’s reading, for something more inspiring, more … um … spiritual. Do not love sleep, or else you will come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread. (Proverbs 20:13 NRSV) The expression at first seems an exaggeration: Don’t love sleep.
feasting amid foes: Psalm 23
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Psalms, textures on July 30, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The generative peculiarity of the twenty-third Psalm lies in its refusal to compromise the threat. The valley of deep darkness (traditionally, ‘the valley of the shadow of death’) and the surrounding enemies remain intact. Their destructive capacity is not underestimated nor is the enemies’ sinister intention disavowed. They are simply left, in the poetics of [...]
ordinary fury: Romans 12
Posted in textures, tagged biblical reflection, Romans, textures on July 29, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Paul is not pollyannish in the face of evil’s reality. The apostle names opposition to God’s purposes with supple and varied vocabulary. There are ‘principalities and powers’, ‘rulers’, ‘dominions’, and ‘authorities’. Paul can discourse widely upon the power of sin and death. He lays hold of imagery of warfare, its weapons, and its equipment to [...]
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