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Lessons from the Gospel of Luke
My publisher (AMG) has just added Latte with Luke to Mocha on the Mount, Java with the Judges, Espresso with Esther…. This seven-week study in Luke’s Gospel makes number twelve in my Coffee Cup Bible Study series. With this release the series re-launches with a great new cover and, even more fun, the endorsement of fellow bible.org contributor, Kelley Mathews, on the front cover. What’s in it for you, my faithful Engage readers? Four free excerpts from devotionals in the study: One about Zaccheus Remember Lot’s Wife The Bent-Over Woman Jesus Healed Mary Magdalene: Mary from Magdala or Mary Tower? What Makes Luke’s Gospel Unique Matthew, Mark, and John were Jewish; Luke was a…
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Plan Ahead for Meaningful Holidays: Make This The Year You Get It Right
A ceramic pumpkin centerpiece still decorates my table. And we have yet to plan the Thanksgiving menu. Maybe instead of turkey we’ll have breakfast for dinner like we did last year—complete with Eggs Benedict slathered in Hollandaise sauce. For some of us it feels a bit early to plan now for the Christmas season. But the first Sunday in Advent falls on November 27 this year. And we want to experience a sane, wise holiday season, right? We want to eschew the insanity that often comes with the celebration. And that requires some planning. And so I give you my annual list of seven suggestions. Here’s the 2022 offering. Select…
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Revisiting the Topic of Women in Public Ministry: My Recommended Resources (2022)
For more than two decades, I’ve taught a course on gender and its ramifications in the church and for women in public ministry. Since #MeToo and #ChurchToo combined with Christian leaders saying women have to endure abuse to be biblical and also that women shouldn’t teach in seminaries, I’ve seen a shift in attitudes. Add to that the one-two punches of Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez with Beth Allison Barr’s book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: People are revisiting what and why they believe on the topic. Some have sat up and said, basically, “Evangelicals have barred the front door against radical feminism while leaving the back door wide open to misogyny.”…
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Do Women Have to Be Quiet?
What does Paul mean when he twice enjoins women’s quietnesss in 1 Timothy 2:11–12? First, let’s look at the context: 2:1I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper…
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Celebrity-Driven Christianity?
Aspire to lead a quiet life (1 Thess 4.11). “It’s the seemingly unimportant people who determine the course of history. The greatest forces in the universe are never spectacular. Summer showers do more good than hurricanes, but they don’t get a lot of publicity. The world would soon die but for the loyalty, creativity, and commitment of those whose names are unhonoured and unsung.” —author James Sizoo For seventeen years I served as editor-in-chief of a magazine for Christ-followers. In that position I constantly faced pressure from myself and others to gain followers by running a big-name profile on the cover. But I had to resist the temptation, because I…
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What Does Genesis 6 Have to Do with Male/Female Relationships?
What Does Genesis 6 Have to Do with Healthy Male/Female Friendships? Recently, I had a fascinating email interaction initiated by my friend Henry Rouse, a theologian in Australia, about the narrative in Genesis leading up to the Flood. The text in view seems to reveal something important about man and woman in God’s story. The text we discussed was not Genesis 1 (origin of humanity) nor Genesis 2 (the man’s nap, the woman’s creation) nor Genesis 3 (the Fall)—the usual pericopes from the book of Beginnings mentioned in conversations about men and women. Rather, we were talking about Genesis 6. I’ve combined our conversation into what follows, which includes work…
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The Forerunner: What Does Repentance Look Like?
About four hundred years before Christ, Malachi (5th century BC) predicted that the prophet Elijah (who lived in the 10th century BC) would return and herald the arrival of the Messiah (Mal. 4:5). In John the Baptist’s day, his people expected the literal Elijah to return from the dead as Messiah’s forerunner. Elijah himself had raised a dead person, so they had some precedent for someone coming back from the dead. The angel’s announcement to Elizabeth and Zechariah identified their baby as the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy; he would come in the “spirit and power” of Elijah (Luke 1:17, 76). During John’s ministry, when asked if he was Elijah, John said, “I…
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Resources to Know About
PODCASTS, ARTICLES, AND BOOKS Article: Ever notice how both Adam and Eve got rebuked for their mutual sin (Gen. 3)? And how both Ananias and Saphira got in trouble for their mutual sin (Acts 5:9)? And how both Ahab and Jezebel had consequences for their mutual sin (2 Kings 9:10)? But only David gets rebuked for his crime against Bathsheba? See this article: “Blame David, Not Bathsheba. The Prophet Nathan Did: In the Book of Samuel, three key voices say he’s the guilty one, not her.” Dr. Carmen Imes, author of Bearing God’s Name (you can read here the interview I did with her when Bearing God’s Name came out) wrote the piece for Christianity Today.…
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Did Jesus Have Women Disciples…and other questions
Were any of Jesus’s disciples women? Yes. Dorcas (Greek), also called Tabitha (Aramaic), lived in Joppa, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. We find Dorcas’s story beginning in Acts 9:36. And the author introduces her as “a disciple.” This reference to Tabitha is the only time in the NT that we find the feminine form of the Greek word, μαθήτρια. The plural masculine form of the word, “disciples,” appears many times in the NT, including in contexts where women are included in a group. So Tabitha is certainly not the only woman disciple in the NT. But in this case she is singled out. She lived with widows, ministered to widows, and clothed them with lovely…
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Gender and Jesus: Scripture over Stereotype
When I enrolled in a master’s degree program back in the 1990s, I took a required standardized psych test for entry. And soon after that, I received a call from one of the school’s counselors. He told me he needed to set up an appointment because I had scored “overly masculine” on that test. And of course that result raised a red flag. Fortunately for me, this counselor had once been my supervisor in a church staff job, so he knew me well enough to laugh at such a silly test result. But still, he was required to call me in for a chat. After I settled in on his…
