Category Archives: Theology

The Parable of the Midwives

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Horus_presents_Regalia_to_Pharaoh - CopyBREAKING: the midwife murderers have just entered the court room. Tamar and Gomer are each charged with 10 counts of infanticide.

In the process of helping young Hebrew parents deliver their babies, Tamar and Gomer are accused of examining the child as it enters the world. If the baby was a male, they would grab hold of it and rush out of the tent and proceed to kill it. In order to be sensitive to our viewers, we will not go into the gruesome details.

The trial room is hushed as the judge begins to question the two women.

The Judge asks, “were the two of you present when each of the Hebrew male children were born”?

A hushed yes from both of the trembling accused.

“And did you kill the infants”?

Another barely audible yes. Continue reading →

The West Wing Obsolescence (Applying Hebrews Today)

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There is a famous scene from the drama The West Wing in which President Bartlett rips into Dr. Jenna Jacobs, a conservative talk show host. The dialogue is based on an actual letter that was originally addressed to Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

At a press conference, the President accuses Dr. Jacobs (and by proxy all Christians) of cherry picking the Scriptures they accept and being inconsistent in how they apply them. Specifically, the scene makes it clear that Christians are acting hypocritical for holding to some parts of the Mosaic Law (ie regarding homosexuality as a sin) and not others.

Here is one example:

… we’ve got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean – Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins still play football?

Unfortunately, this scene was cut from that episode. A young journalist steps forward.

Continue reading →

Cross-Fit: What the Original Hebrew audience and Runners have in common

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The author of Hebrews challenges his original audience to “run the race with endurance” and to cast aside those things that will slow them down. And while we may not be tempted to return the Mosaic Law as they were, we too are called to “finish our race” by keeping the faith. TM_Mud

As some readers may know, when I am not reading a theology book or hanging with the family I can be found working out for an upcoming race. A race that often involves mud and obstacles. As in any race, we can start off well, but fail to reach the finish line if we become sluggish in our training and fail to keep our eyes focused on the finish line.

This truth about running races was an analogy used by Paul (1 Cor 9:24-27; 2 Tim 2:5) as well as the author of Hebrews (12:1) to describe the Christian life. Both Paul and the author of Hebrews were afraid of running the race in vain (Gal 2:2) even if they started off well (Gal 5:7) because they did not want to fail to receive what was promised (1 Cor 9:27; Heb 10:35-36). This motivated them to press on and strive to reach their goal (Philippians 3:14; Heb 4:11) so that they could reach that finish line (2 Tim 4:7) and exclaim:

I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

And they encouraged others to do the same.

Continue reading →