This past Saturday I returned from my two week residential intensive Davenant Hall course, "How to Read the Bible and the World." Naturally, it was a great time, but as with all great times, it produced many thoughts, along with a pesky number of emotions. Many of these thougths and emotions orbit around the … Read more…

An Analysis of Luke 23:27-31 Caleb Smith Reading the Gospels with Wisdom November 28, 2020 Introduction Around the world over all of time, there may be no historical account that has received quite so much study and attention as that of Jesus of Nazareth's trial and crucifixion. This extraordinary event has come down t… Read more…

Jesus has performed numerous miracles. Most recently He has fed another group of thousands, but afterwards His disciples still did not understand Him. Next He healed a blind man, and we enter this scene wondering: if Jesus can cure the beggar's blindness, can He not cure His own disciples'? For a moment, it seems that … Read more…

Jesus leaves home abruptly to go the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus stills the sea, which may foreshadow the stillness He is about to bring to a Gentile demoniac, given the Old Testament association of the Gentile nations and the sea. The event also evokes Old Testament imagery of God’s power over nature, and … Read more…

[Continued notes for my Davenant Hall class, “Reading the Gospels with Wisdom.”] Jesus' return home may have been full of strife up to this point, with dark accusations from the scribes and someone tense relations with His family, but the rest of the visit moves from events to teaching in one of the few extended sectio… Read more…

[Continued notes for my Davenant Hall class, "Reading the Gospels with Wisdom."] Mark 2 opens with Jesus' return to Capernaum. It refers to this as Jesus "at home," which does not introduce a great deal of meaning but nonetheless strikes one accustomed to thinking so much of Jesus' deity as unusuall… Read more…