In this episode of the Theopolis Podcast, Peter Leithart and I discuss the readings for the twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost: Revelation 14:6-7; Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36 or Mark 11:12-19.
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Today’s question:
You referred in a recent lectionary talk with Peter Leithart to “being our brother’s keeper.” What is your understanding of the ethical meaning of a “keeper” biblically speaking?
It is sometimes a point of controversy in liberal/conservative Christian political arguments as to the relevance of Cain’s refusal of the role of “keeper” (when in fact, Cain has not just failed to aid Abel but murdered him actively) to our understanding of our call to love and serve our neighbor, using the phrase as an expansive claim that justifies almost any kind of political action desired, casting the one who is skeptical of the action as a Cain-like person who dismisses a call to be his brother’s keeper.
To me “keeper” has connotations of a guardian with charge of a dependent inferior or one who is weak. Like ‘zookeeper’ or a tale of a overprotective father who “keeps” his daughter safe locked in a tower. Do we find being a “keeper” of another as a model of Christian regard elsewhere in scripture, and if not, should we found an ethic by simply negating the dismissive words of a murderer?
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On this episode of Mere Fidelity, Matt, Derek, and I are joined by Matthew Arbo, author of the recent book, Walking Through Infertility: Biblical, Theological, and Moral Counsel for Those Who Are Struggling.
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Today’s question:
Do you see any parallels between the great commission and the exodus? I don’t want to get Echo-crazy. Just from a surface level, there some to be some connections: confrontation with “the name,” a sending out, baptism, and the nations called to the Lord. Am I crazy, or is there something going on here?
Within this video, I reference the following books and articles:
Peter Leithart, ‘Jesus as Israel: The Typological Structure of Matthew’s Gospel’
Peter Leithart, The Gospel of Matthew Through New Eyes: Volume One—Jesus as Israel
Andrew Wilson and Alastair Roberts, Echoes of Exodus
If you have any questions for me, please leave them on my Curious Cat account. If you have found these videos helpful, please tell your friends. If you would like to support my continued production of them, you can do so on my Patreon account. You can also get the audio of these videos on Soundcloud or iTunes.
I wrote a review of Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible, a recent book edited by Sandra Glahn, which has just been posted over on the CBMW website.
In the necessary work of restoring our portraits of key women in Scripture, our goal should be to move through the obscuring layers of misinterpretations, to rediscover what lies beneath. Such a task requires a deep commitment and attention to the fundamental biblical portraits. We are at risk of painting over the offending layers, rather than peeling them away. Opposition to error is always in danger of articulating ‘truth’ in a manner that remains trapped within the terms of and determined by reaction to that error, such as answering vixen-ations with vindications. At its best, this book offers stimulating and insightful treatments of neglected or misrepresented characters. Yet the frequent weakness of its grounding in the greater narrative of Scripture leaves several of its attempted restorations of biblical portraits no less marred than those they sought to rectify.
Read the whole review here.
If you would like me to discuss my interpretation of any of the biblical women discussed in the book in more depth, leave a question on my Curious Cat account. You might also be interested in this post, which takes up some of the issues raised by the general approach adopted by the book.
Today I discuss the troubling passage at the end of 2 Kings 2, where forty-two are killed after ridiculing the prophet Elisha. This discussion was prompted by Jonathan Pageau’s discussion of this passage.
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Today’s question:
How do you find real-life theological conversation partners? The theological and biblical conversations which I find stimulating and important are of no interest to the Christians I know in real life. Do I need to do what you’ve done and move across the world to be closer to the people I interact with on the internet?
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Today’s question: “Why did Jesus have to be baptized? Was Jesus’ baptism a baptism of repentance?”
Within my discussion I reference Peter Leithart’s book The Priesthood of the Plebs.
If you have any questions for me, please leave them on my Curious Cat account. If you have found these videos helpful, please tell your friends. If you would like to support my continued production of them, you can do so on my Patreon account. You can also get the audio of these videos on Soundcloud or iTunes.
Today’s question: “In your video on the Sermon on the Mount you mentioned a parallel between the Beatitudes and the Woes of Matthew 23. Could you elaborate on this?”
To read more about the parallel between Beatitudes and Woes, see this article by James Jordan. For more on the typological structure of Matthew, see Peter Leithart’s article on the subject, or the recently released first volume of his Matthew commentary.
If you have any questions for me, please leave them on my Curious Cat account. If you have found these videos helpful, please tell your friends. If you would like to support my continued production of them, you can do so on my Patreon account. You can also get the audio of these videos on Soundcloud or iTunes.
This, my friends, is the final episode of Mere Fidelity’s lengthy conversation with Augustine’s Confessions. You can find all of the past Confessions episodes on my Mere Fidelity page.
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n. pl.
A miscellaneous collection of notes, remarks, or selections.
Alastair's Adversaria 