The UmBlog

I had all sorts of intentions to re-read my Greek New Testament this year, but it's March and I haven't. I was feeling the guilt when I saw Zondervan was running a blog tour for this book, Keep Your Greek by Constantine R. Campbell, I signed up for a review copy. When it arrived, I was surprised at how thin it was, less than 100 pages in a medium sized font. When I started reading it, I was surprised that it wasn't entirely written by Campbell, a Greek and New Testament lecturer at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, but also by commenters on his blog where the essays were originally posted. At first, I thought some of the comments included were extraneous, just page fillers, but themes emerged, including the recommendations of other Zondervan books for the study of Koine Greek , some of which I own already. I am not saying this short book is merely a promotional vehicle for Zondervan's other scholastic products. In fact, I am encouraged to resume reading ...

As a family, we finished reading together the New Testament. Now I want to get them through the Old Testament in year. I don't want them to languish in despair at some of the harder books, so I looked for a plan that had readings from a different section of the OT every day. Here is what I found. I told them the weekend NT readings were optional but that they can use the weekends to catch up on the longer readings in the OT during the week. Six chapters of Ezekiel in a day may be too much for my 10 year old. I plan on reading the NT sections. I might read them in English first then Greek or use my NET diglot . I did succeed in reading through the NT in Greek this year. But I'm no scholar. I needed much help from Kubo .

We are working from 1 Corinthians 5:11. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who calls himself a Christian who is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or verbally abusive, or a drunkard, or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. (NET) Today's focus is on swindlers . The Greek word is harpax . Paul uses the word three times in this very letter and Jesus uses it twice. Here are the verses . Jesus Mat 7:15 “Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are voracious wolves. Luk 18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: extortionists , unrighteous people, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. Paul 1Co 5:10 In no way did I mean the immoral people of this world, or the greedy and swindlers and idolaters, since you would then have to go out of the world. 1Co 5:11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who calls...

It was really nice in Haiti. I liked being disconnected from the news and the blogs. When I came home I went to google reader and told it that all 1,000 unread blogs were officially read. Surprisingly, life continued without difficulty. But now I'm back in the US where I blog and read blogs and sometimes comment on blogs. My friend Justin McRoberts posted a funny video about how good we actually have things, despite our bad economy. I compared things here to life in Haiti. I also made a comment on a post of his about Christian T-shirts . Jill in Alaska couldn't finish the Iditarod Race by bike this week because of frostbite and she fears she let her fans down. My friend Phil has started a blog for those who live in houses that weren't built with concerns of oil prices or shame of drafts. He had a great series on to replace windows or not. Like many of us, he'd love super windows , a post I inquired further about. I think his message could be summarized with the lyric,...

I am attempting again to read through the Greek New Testament. A chapter a day should get me through the year. I started in the Pastoral Epistles in December. As someone who likes to read through the Bible a couple times a year, it's good for me to read in slow motion. I use two tools. The NET Bible diglot and Kubo's Lexicon . It's still cheating but it's more effort than using Bibleworks , which is such a crutch that I never even try to figure out a compound verb. I am in Hebrews right now and it is very humbling. Sometimes though, one might need to get their Greek New Testament on when they are at work. It's nice to know where the good are. I've used Zhubert before, which is at The Resurgence , but the B-Greek list just pointed to Kata Biblon . Both are really great. For the best cheating away from your tools, I find Misslebrook's notes the best. They are more of a Greek study Bible than anything else. They are so much of a crutch, like software, that...

These posts are my favorites from my travels around the blogs. They appear in the shared feeds section all week here at the Umblog, or you can bookmark this page , or add it to your feeds with the RSS link . 1-The Tall Skinny Kiwi broke down the 5 models of the emerging church back in the last century and now he's reposting his analysis, which is good fun. Enjoy. 2-A widow describes her painful transition with and without the church's help at Christianity Today. 3-The white wife of a bi-racial couple describes the racism her husband lives with constantly, in the context of Obama's pastor's Afro-centrist stand. 4-I blogged about induction stoves before . Here is one person's new and pleasant experience with his own. 5-A Canadian journalist defends his right before a government agent to publish the controversial Mohammed cartoons . 6-A c onversation with the boys on their bikes by a Christian who wants to know what the good news is that they are restoring. 7-A y...

Nigel Bagnall was a retired British army Chief of Staff when he wrote this book . He died shortly after he wrote it. Most of what we know about the war between the city states comes from Thucydides and Xenophon and Plutarch who Bagnall references frequently, but not slavishly. He freely questions their accounts and contrasts them with other accounts or with the possibilities of reality or the subsequent narrative of the storyteller. For the bible student, hearing about the involvement of Cyrus and Artaxerxes and other Persian kings gives a greater context to understand the world they lived in and the cameos they make in the post-exilic Old Testament stories. For citizens of countries currently at war, the difficulties of democracy, ambition, money, morale, tactics, and their interplay rings a familiar tune.

in Greek, ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς, but rescue/deliver us... in the ultimate reality, God's kingdom, we realize there are no bootstraps we can pull ourselves up with. all we have are filthy rags. we have no kingdom of our own. we have no will of our own. we can't feed ourselves. we can't avoid indebtedness to God. we can't even tell ourselves "No." we are drowning in need of a rescuer. it turns out ,a rescuer has come to tell good news to the poor, to set captives free, to restore sight to the blind, and to release the oppressed. (Luke 4:18-19) this prayer reminds us that the delivering and rescuing is ongoing, just like the forgiving and being forgiven, and the sustaining, and the worshiping. our life is a journey, a pilgrimage, and a walk. we spend our entire lives learning to die. Then He said to them all, "If anyone wants to come with Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever ...

great resources, well described, especially cool is this Greek NT site .

for you Greek geeks, it's almost complete. i found one broken link.

it's incomplete but an amazing resource