Peripatetic Pastor

Category: Biblical Reflections

  • HOMER AND HEGSETH

    Homer is having a moment, not least because of Emily Wilson, whose Odyssey translation appeared in 2017 and recently became the basis for a Christopher Nolan movie (see my comments on the movie here). She is currently working on a new Odyssey translation. Her Iliad appeared in 2023, and just this past month, she published…

  • FINITUDE

    Thinking about Resurrection The Bible is about finitude—about this time-bound life we live here on earth. Most people come to the Bible not expecting this. They expect infinitude. They expect the Bible to be about immortal souls rather than mortal bodies, so prone as they are to failure. And of course the Bible is about…

  • THE COMING WRATH

    THE BAPTIST’S QUESTION In his third chapter, Matthew tells the story of John the Baptist. Or, more accurately, John the Washer. Or, perhaps, John the Dunker. Baptizō in Greek, the word from which we get “baptize,” means “to dip in water,” “to dunk,” before it comes in the New Testament to take on the meanings we give…

  • Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

    This from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Prologue to Letters and Papers from Prison, translated by Lisa E. Cahill, et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015, Kindle edition, page 9). By stupidity, Bonhoeffer means a sort of willed ignorance. Stupid people can be, often are, intellectually capable. It requires no other comment. On Stupidity  Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy…

  • ŠEQER: JEREMIAH AND THE LIE THAT UNDERMINES EVERYTHING

    Sometimes a single word helps put a name to something you have been struggling to understand. For me recently such a word has been šeqer (pronounced shéqer), biblical Hebrew for “falsehood,” “a lie”). I came upon šeqer in the best possible way—by accident. I was rummaging around in my library looking for books on Jeremiah. I preached this weekend,…

  • READING THEOLOGICALLY, AND WHY IT MATTERS

    God’s Homecoming Last week I published a rather long review of a popular book by N. T. Wright, God’s Homecoming (2025). I spent some time with the book because I think it raises important issues. In it, Wright attempts to redefine what it means to be human—what it means to live and to die apart from two…

  • LIFE BEYOND: A REVIEW OF GOD’S HOMECOMING by N. T. Wright

    N. T. Wright, God’s Homecoming: The Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal (HarperOne, 2025; digital edition, 2026) He understands as he mouths the words what’s happening here. He desperately wants to believe that his son still exists, still exists in some actual sense, not just as a memory, and what happened to him is somehow part of some…

  • REFLECTING ON CHURCH IN TRIESTE, ITALY

    THE LIMITS OF THEOLOGY We’ve been traveling. You may have noticed the radio silence from me. Or not. I had almost forgotten it was Sunday. Easy to do when you are traveling, nine time zones from home. We were wandering the streets of Trieste, Italy, the lovely town on the shores of the Adriatic. We…

  • TAKING EVIL SERIOUSLY

    RETRIEVING A BIBLICAL VIEW OF EVIL We who grew Reformed pride ourselves in taking evil seriously. Total depravity, and all that. The doctrine of total depravity does make us wary of anyone who claims too much righteousness. We were taught that pious talk often serves as a cover for dishonorable motives. We expect people, religious…

  • Begin with Belonging

    Retrieving Election Begin with belonging. Churches (not just churches but many religious groups, regardless of the faith they espouse) begin from the opposite direction: they tell you that you don’t belong, that you will belong only if you believe what they believe, if you take the membership class, if you say the prayer, if you…