John Mark Hicks

Bible stories. Many of us have heard them since we were children. Daniel and the Lion’s Den. Noah’s Ark. Three Angels Visiting Abraham. Moses and the Burning Bush. David and Goliath. And many more! Bible stories are important. They do more than tweak the emotions or offer a moralism, as important as those dimensions are. […]

Fortunately for us, Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians 16:1-4 do not stand alone. In another letter to the Corinthians, chapters 8 & 9 of what we call 2 Corinthians, Paul felt compelled to further encourage the Corinthians to follow through on their commitment to the poor saints in Jerusalem. This is fortunate because we have a wonderful opportunity […]

“It ain’t that complicated.” My recent series on “theological hermeneutics” may seem complicated. I may have made it look complicated. But I don’t think it is complicated at all. The method for which I argued does call for inductive Bible study, reflection, contemplation, holistic thinking, attention to the plot (metanarrative) in the theodrama, prayer, communal dialogue, […]

Okay, maybe I’m not ready to go with the intensely practical as yet….my bad!  But I think the following methodological outline of a theological hermeneutic is a fairly simple one.   I will wait for the “rubber-meets-the-road” kind of ecclesiological discussions of the theological hermeneutic (which is, historically, what really interests the heirs of the Stone-Campbell […]

Imbibing the theodrama by reading Scripture is critical to the development of our theological sensitivities. One of the more important dimensions of this maturing understanding of the theodrama is the concept of redemptive-historical movement within the drama itself. The theodrama is progressive; it is telos-oriented or goal-oriented. Watching the movement of the drama toward the […]

Scripture comes to us as human literature. It is written by humans for humans in human language. Whatever it communicates, then, it communicates through the medium of finite, limiting, bounded human language. In this context, I raise only three points in this post. Much more, of course, could be said, but these points are significant […]