The Wandering Heretic

Last Lectures are the in thing right now. A book entitled The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch was a runaway hit on Amazon. At my old college, some brave professors participated in a program called “The Last Lecture Series.” In this series, they were to give a lecture to those attending as if it were [...]

Déjà vu: The ultimate “been there, done that.” For most people, déjà vu is a feeling, an uncanny impression that you have been in a place before, or met someone before, or generally been in a certain situation before; although you have no current recollection of it. It has been the rather tenuous basis for [...]

The decision of James at the Jerusalem council has been the subject of some controversy; not the decision itself but the rational behind the decision. Unless someone is willing to admit that the four restrictions of Gentile behavior were arbitrary, James had to have some underlying understanding of the Scriptures that prompted that focus. This [...]

The decision of James at the Jerusalem Council almost demands a search for the underlying logic. On its own, the four stipulations given to the Gentiles appear almost random. They were to avoid “things” sacrificed to idols, blood, food that was strangled, and “sexual perversion.” As I noted previously, this is hardly a comprehensive ethic. [...]

In my last post, I discussed Tim Hegg’s proposed underlying logic behind James decision at the Jerusalem Council. Hegg’s rather extensive and valuable contribution to this topic is contained in his essay, Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council. In that document, Hegg proposes that the four restrictions given on Gentile behavior all had to do [...]

The decision of James at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:19-21 and codified in a letter to the Gentile churches in Acts 15:28-29 almost begs for an underlying rational. On its own, it does not serve as a comprehensive ethic, for it restricts Gentiles only from 1) things offered to images, 2) blood, 3) things [...]

In my last post, I noted the quandary that was created by God’s desire to “bring in the Gentiles.” The Apostles were taken aback by just how committed God was to that goal. In essence, they suddenly had a large group of Gentiles who were attaching themselves to Israel through the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. Through [...]

N.T. Wright has often said that an ordination question he asks seminarians concerns just what three chapters of the Bible they would keep if they were about to be stranded on a desert island. Then he notes, they already have Matthew 28, John 3, and Romans 8. I used to be at a loss for [...]

Acts Chapter 15 is the watershed passage in Scripture when one wants to consider the relationship between Jew and Gentile in the new Messianic communities. It also has bearing as to the nature of the Torah to both groups as members of the same body. However, there are some foundational assumptions behind the passage that [...]

As Gentiles we have been engrafted into Israel, and as such are part of the people of Israel. That has been my focus in many of my last posts. Now I think I need to tell you why this has become so important to me. For you see, unlike other nations, Israel was defined as [...]