Isaiah 7:10-17: slides and video from a sermon

I learned a great deal by working on a sermon on Isaiah 7:10-17 with the quotation of Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:22-23 for our church, Emmanuel, Loughborough, yesterday (Advent 4, 18 December). I’m particularly grateful to my friend Dan Gurtner, who is working on the revised Word Biblical Commentary on Matthew, for helping me think about how Matthew ‘reads’ Isaiah, although he should not, of course, be held responsible for my conclusions. Here are the video (just over 21 mins) and the slides from my Continue reading →

Reflecting on SBL Denver 2022

I greatly enjoyed being in Denver a couple of weeks ago for the annual SBL meeting. It was a lovely opportunity to reconnect with people, many of whom I’d not seen in person for three years because of covid—I cannot recall a day when I have hugged so many people as the Friday! In particular, it was great to see current and former doctoral students in person again. I went to a bunch of papers, although I found myself generally selecting individual papers in a Continue reading →

Slides and handout on ‘Wealth and possessions according to Acts 11–28’ (my SBL paper)

I enjoyed contributing to to a seminar on ‘Wealth and Poverty in Luke-Acts, Revisited’ at the SBL annual meeting in Denver recently. I spoke on ‘Wealth and possessions according to Acts 11–28’, a neglected part of Luke-Acts in this discussion. Here are my slides from the talk, and here is the handout I made available through the SBL/AAR app (I liked this addition to the app this year)—I’d welcome thoughts and comments. Oh, and the sign above? It amused me!

Slides on Matthew 8–9

I had the delight of addressing the Leicester Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship today on Matthew 8–9, a section which focuses on Jesus’ authority. Here are the slides from that talk for those interested (they’re an adapted version of slides I shared as part of my larger Matthew teaching for Blackburn diocese a couple of weeks ago here). Comments and thoughts most welcome!

A cracking read: Luke Timothy Johnson’s autobiography as a scholar

Luke Timothy Johnson, The Mind in Another Place: My Life as a ScholarGrand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022. ISBN 978-0-8028-8011-6. I read Luke Timothy Johnson’s book with great appreciation over the weekend. It’s clear, lucid, engaging, and very encouraging and stimulating. I’ve long been an admirer of his work: his published PhD dissertation, The Literary Function of Possessions in Luke-Acts (SBLDS 39; Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977) was a pioneering ‘narrative’ reading of Luke-Acts which I found very helpful in my own PhD work a few years later, Continue reading →