Daily Gleanings (29 May 2019)

Reading time: 2 minutes

Freedom introduces Pause, a new Chrome extension that enforces a short pause before allowing you to open distracting websites. According to the extension’s description,

When loading a distracting website, Pause creates a gentle interruption by displaying a calming green screen.  After pausing for 5 seconds, you can then choose to continue to the site – or get back to work.  Leveraging behavioral science, the interruption created by Pause gently nudges you to make informed, intentional decisions about how you are spending your time.

Pause comes pre-seeded with a list of 50 top distracting websites, and you can add or remove sites from your Pause list.

Pause is apparently built to work in Chrome even if you don’t otherwise have an active Freedom subscription. For more information, see the Chrome web store.


Michael Kruger raises the question of the rootedness of the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) in modern cultural realities, akin to what is often suggested by NPP proponents against readings of Paul in the tradition of the Reformers. The main body of the post helpfully leverages Barry Matlock’s “oft-overlooked academic article” entitled “Almost Cultural Studies? Reflections on the ‘New Perspective’ on Paul.” (See the original post for fuller bibliographic information on this essay.)

On both sides of this debate, I’m reminded of Gadamer’s observations that we, of course, always encounter the past under the influence of and as we are formed by “what is nearest to us.” But at the same time, this influence is not solely restrictive but enables our engagement with and productive knowledge of the past in particular ways.

On these themes, see “Hermeneutics and ‘the Near’” and “Tradition and Method.”

Daily Gleanings (2 May 2019)

Reading time: 2 minutes

I recently did a blog post series on expanding your research materials.

In this same vein, Mark Hoffman discusses the “Library Extension” for Chrome and Firefox. As Mark summarizes,

Once you add the extension in either of the those browsers, an icon appears in the toolbar. Click it on to select your available public library and some educational institution ones. If your library system offers it, it will also allow you to connect to Hoopla and OverDrive.

It’s not a perfect system. Depending on which edition or version of a book you select, you will get different results. And your public library probably doesn’t carry that technical volume on an advanced biblical topic.

In any case, this is a handy way to see if your local library has a book you can check out, and sometimes it is even available as an eBook or an audiobook.

I’ve just installed the extension myself and am interested to see what it may turn up.

HT: Kirk Lowery


Michael Kruger abstracts a longer essay of his and concisely discusses the possibility that 1 Timothy quotes Luke.

For the full essay, see Louis Dow, Craig Evans, and Andrew Pitts, eds., The Language and Literature of the New Testament: Essays in Honor of Stanley E. Porter’s 60th Birthday (Brill, 2016), 680–700.

To do so and still afford to read anything else, perhaps interlibrary loan of this one chapter might be a good option. 🙂