brick-a-brack 170113 Bumper Summer Edition!

Tom Rainer does some sloppy research and comes up with a list of ten things church members want from their pastor. A good list to make us pastors to feel unworthy, but then living up to other people's expectations is a crock anyway. I just include it here because blog that list things are really hip. No, really.

More usefully Marc Cortez examines "the call", that mysterious thing pastors get before they become pastors. It is a bit like getting the flu, except the flu only ruins your life for a few days. While the better looking Jonathan cries at Spiderman the Musical when he considers his and the New Zealand Baptist Research society have a couple of talks on leadership for your delectation.

Larry Hurtado as usual makes us all feel guilty for not knowing as much as he does with a very helpful blog on the state of scholarship around the Roman Imperial Cult and it's influence on the NT. If you are ever stuck for a PhD idea just pick one of his blog posts at random and you'll be guaranteed to find a subject that would keep any mortal man busy for decades.

Andrew Perriman argues against the common conception of Jesus' parables as an attempt to make his teaching clear and simple, rather he argues it was to confuse and obfuscicate. I think he is right in some cases but not in others. maybe Jesus didn't just have one MO when telling stories? (I know shocking right?)

John Byron relates some new research on slavery in Eygypt to NT studies and the assumption that self sale slavery was a common practise in the ancient world.

While James Leonard provides us with a very nice comparative list of OT canons and the order of the books in some different traditions.

David Sessions does a great piece on the way self help doesn't work because the modern understanding of the self is a load of processed offal with italian herbs.

Kristen Rosser takes on a different sacred cow, that of the common misreading of Eph 5 relating Christ and the church to marriage. That is one of those misreadings on which enormous edificies of dopey theology are regularly constructed by lazy exegetes.

Need a book review? Nick Norelli is a book reviewing machine. just don't expect him to pander to your need for book sales, he'll review it when he is good and ready, alright!

Enjoy!