Thursday, July 29, 2010

A New Bad Habit

Heading to work!
Unfortunately I'm getting into a bad habit of starting a blog, saving it as a draft, adding a couple things to it here and there, and not completing it or just trashing it altogether. I've got 3 in the draft pile at the moment, really want to finish them but I can't seem to get myself to do it. I have to be in a particular mindset and mode to write, I can't write or finish if it isn't just flowing in my mind and my fingers motion along with it. I wish I could pop out at least 1 or 2 a month, but with the growing responsibilities I find it hard to be able to work on them. And even if I do find time, it's still a struggle to make sense of what I want to portray--writer's block, ahh yes. I hate it.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Background of the Johannine Epistles

Although outside sources concerning the historical background of the biblical times are not infallible like the Holy Scriptures, it's good to do some research as to what scholars have found what was most likely going on around the time a biblical letter was written. For example, we see in Peter's first epistle that his letter was written to those who were spread out in "Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." And scholars believe that he put it in this form because this was most likely the route in which the letter would be passed on. And so if you look at a Bible map, you'll see that it could very well be the reason. I took a seminary class last week on John's epistles and was surprised by the scholarship done on what seemed to be going on around the time of the letters being composed. Here's a few tidbits of information as to what John Stott and D.A. Carson have concluded.