Daily Archives: September 21, 2012

The “wife of Christ”

Reminds me of a preaching brother in the Ohio Valley a few decades back who had trouble pronouncing the letter “L”. As a result, he often spoke of the “wife of Christ.” True story. Like the Europeans who says “elewator” in stead of “elevator.”

Having been out of the country for three weeks and still delayed in New York, I have been unable to mention the recent spate of media attention to the claim of a document in which Jesus mentions His wife.

For those who are interested in reading some reliable responses to this nonsense, I call attention to two posts by Todd Bolen at the Bible Places Blog.

In the first one, Bolen briefly summarizes his response to the story under the title “Somebody Once Believed That Jesus Had a Wife” here.

In the second one, here,  he lists a summary of more than a dozen articles worth reading.

Don’t go to church Sunday morning without being prepared. Someone is sure to mention one of the brief reports they heard on TV.

Understanding the Land

Charles Savelle, over at Bible X calls attention to a Wall Street Journal article on the importance of geography in understanding world affairs. Read the article here. It might help you to understand better some of the situations going on in Russia, China, Iran, and Syria.

Later, Charles quotes from a new book on Joshua about the same subject and adds his comments about the importance of geography here. I want to share the paragraph he cites from Coleson’s commentary on Joshua in the Joshua, Judges, Ruth (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary)

“Because humans live on the surface of the earth, geography is always important. Because every ancient Israelite, humble or great, lived in close and intimate relationship with the land, if we wish to understand ancient Israel, we need to learn ancient Israel’s geography. Canaan was the Land of Promise God gave to Israel through the events recorded in Joshua; if we want to understand the message of Joshua, we need to study both the physical and the human geography of ancient Israel God’s grand plan of redemption for the human race may transcend both time and space, but God has so far worked it out in a very definite, limited place through a sequence of events in history. To understand God’s plan and its fulfillment, it helps to understand the timeline and the map” (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, p. 33).

I could not agree more.