W. Brian Lane is a physics professor who wrote the very first post for Scholar’s Compass, our ongoing online devotional for academics. This fall, he’s writing a series on engaged learning and how it can help Christian academics teach well in the university and the church. In our mission to support emerging Christian scholars, we’ve found that one key question most grad students and early career profs are asking is how they can serve their students by teaching well. We’re delighted to publish Brian’s reflections on engaged learning this fall, and we hope they help you as you hone the craft of teaching. To God be the glory! [Read more…] about Engaged Learning in Church
biblical hermeneutics
Interview with John Walton
ESN Writer Mark Hansard interviews John Walton, author of The Lost World of Adam and Eve. See Mark’s review of the book here. [Read more…] about Interview with John Walton
Book Review: Abusing Scripture
Abusing Scripture: The Consequences of Misreading the Bible, Manfred T. Brauch. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009.
Summary: The author explores the different ways we misread the Bible and consequently interpret and apply it in ways that abuse both the intent of the text, and sadly, in some cases the people with whom we apply these texts.
Book Review: Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes
All of us assume things that “go without saying”. And, until we encounter other cultures, we tend to assume that the things that go without saying are universally true. Furthermore, we are not aware of these assumptions ordinarily. We don’t see them, we see “through” them.
In Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (InterVarsity Press, 2013), E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien take these insights and apply them to how we read the Bible, a collection of books situated in different times and cultures (as well as a transcendent perspective!). They draw on their own cross-cultural missions experience to provide numerous helpful examples of how they discovered their own “western eyes”. As matters that lie “above the surface”, the authors explore mores, especially around sex, food, and money, race and ethnicity (particularly the presence of these issues in biblical narrative–for example, the book of Ruth, and our use of language. Below the surface come matters of individualism versus collectivism (we read the Bible very individualistically–much of the world does not), honor and shame versus right and wrong (western culture emphasizes the latter), and our conceptions of time (chronos vs kairos). And deep below the surface, they see issues of rules and relationships (which comes first), virtue and vice, and how we understand the will of God (all about me vs God’s will for the world and his people). [Read more…] about Book Review: Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes