Joel 2:28-32 — I Will Pour Out My Spirit On All Flesh

May 7, 2014

Joel’s lament liturgy in the first half of the book envisioned the devastation of Israel by a locust plague (or perhaps an invading army). That impending disaster also represented a future apocalyptic disaster. Joel is working at two levels–the immediate moment but also a future cataclysm. Israel’s response to such news, as with all other […]


Zechariah 10:1-12 — Hope for Ephraim

April 10, 2012

Judah, presently a small backwater province of the Persian Empire, is promised that its future borders will spill over into Philistia, Lebanon and Syria (Zechariah 9:1-8). The land will yield grain and new wine as God restores Judah (Zechariah 9:16-17). God will accomplish this through a king who will bring peace to the nations (Zechariah […]


Patterns, Legalism and Grace: Alexander Campbell

February 6, 2009

It is not legalism to seek patterns or to live by patterns.     It is legalism to use those patterns in such a way that they undermine salvation by grace through faith. That is my summary of what I thought was the sentiment of Cecil May, Jr.’s concluding comments in his February 3, 2009 Freed-Hardeman Lectureship […]