Hone Your Craft as a Biblical Scholar
Tim Perry, ed., The Theology of Benedict XVI: A Protestant Appreciation is forthcoming from Lexham.
Given the scheduled contributors, this volume sounds like it will be quite interesting. For the list of the contributors with their essays, see Lexham’s second image in their post at the link above.
“You can’t get to where you want to go, unless you start with where you are.” – Michael Hyatt
All we can ever do is the next right thing.
Jake Mailhot discusses “how to juggle ministry while attending seminary.” The post takes its cues from Danny Zacharias and Ben Forrest’s Surviving and Thriving in Seminary (Lexham, 2017).
Mailhot aggregates several lines of advice, but one particularly key piece is the anecdote that
A mentor of Ben’s recalled writing in his Bible as a young seminary student, “I’d rather burn out for the Lord than rust out!” Reflecting on that memory nearly fifty years later, he regretted such a perspective and encouraged all who were in the room to do neither! Burning out and rusting out are both ways to ruin one’s legacy. Neither one is the calling that God has placed on the leaders of his church. Rather, as a seminarian you are called to live in the tension between studying and ministering.
Whether specifically in seminary, another form of higher education, or another place of heavy demands, trying to learn to live well with this tension requires healthy boundaries for those various demands. And as a help in maintaining those boundaries, it can often be useful to recognize the “opportunity cost” of saying “yes” to a commitment when there are—as there always are—finite resources with which to fulfill that commitment. A “yes” to Netflix or a given “one more” ministry opportunity will, by definition, be a “no” to something else like time in study or with one’s family. That tension probably never disappears, but it does need to be navigated as wide-eyed as possible to avoid the blindness of “Lord, did we not …?” (Matt 7:22–23).
For the balance of Mailhot’s reflections, see his original post. For Zacharias and Forrest’s volume, see Lexham Press or Logos Bible Software. For some reflections about developing healthy boundaries, see Henry Cloud’s Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life (Zondervan, 1992).
Noteworthy freebies from Faithlife this month include:
The folks at Lexham Press have kindly sent along a copy of Michael Heiser’s book, Supernatural. Heiser holds a PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Supernatural is a follow-up to Heiser’s previous volume Unseen Realm (Lexham, 2015; see Supernatural, 9). Both continue following up on themes Heiser previously explored in his doctoral thesis on “The Divine Council in Late Canonical and Non-Canonical Second Temple Jewish Literature” (2004).
I’ve only just started reading around in the volumes. But, thus far, Heiser’s approach is palpably accessible, and he commendably stresses the importance of doing justice to the biblical text in a way that encourages readers to see and wrestle with what is on the pages in front of them.
I look forward to working through the volumes in more depth. Unseen Realm is already generally available. For more information about Supernatural or to order a copy, please see the book’s website.
Lexham Bible Dictionary now includes among its entries my contributions on “Aquila,” “Emesa,” “Israel, Place,” and “Law in Second Temple Judaism.”
Connections can read these contributions via my LinkedIn page under “Publications.”
The Lexham Theological Wordbook began shipping late last year and includes my entry on “Forgiveness.”
The Lexham Bible Dictionary has recently been updated with, among other items, my entries on “Haifa” and “Jenin.”
Connections can read these contributions via my LinkedIn page under “Publications.”