Paul rsquo s First Letter to Timothy though many scholars doubt Paul wrote it reflects the heart of the Christian hope that Paul expressed in his letters ldquo Fight the good fight of the faith take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in
John W. Martens
John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.
Posted inThe Word
Love at First Sight
The baby Jesus still grabs our attention and the sweet obsession of the gypsy Yerko in Robertson Davies rsquo s The Rebel Angels for the ldquo Bebby Jesus rdquo reveals that deep attraction After a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where Yerko sees a medieval cr che scene he
Posted inThe Word
Wastin’ Time?
There is a bittersweet gentleness to Otis Redding rsquo s classic song ldquo Sitting on the Dock of the Bay rdquo as the singer looks homeward to Georgia while ldquo wastin rsquo time rdquo on the San Francisco docks Everyone has experienced a longing for home whether at summer camp as a chi
Posted inThe Word
The Coming of the King
The Greek word that refers to Jesus rsquo arrival most often translated as ldquo second coming rdquo is parousia The term was adopted by Christians from the common Greek usage and imperial Roman ideology of the day in which a city prepared for and eagerly anticipated the arrival of a major po
Posted inThe Word
The Small Matter of Sin
The passage from the Book of Wisdom about God ldquo overlooking rdquo sins has a wry humor when juxtaposed with little Zacchaeus too small in stature to be seen That is not true of course for no matter where Zacchaeus was standing hidden among the crowd or walking away from Jesus God ldquo
Posted inThe Word
Who’s Missing?
When you rsquo re lost it rsquo s good to be missed it rsquo s even better to be found At the heart of spiritual lostness though is our collusion in our own absence People are not inanimate objects like coins things that can fall unwittingly into corners nor are they like sheep animals with
Posted inThe Word
Tired of Sin
Sin is attractive I have watched a lot of television shows in my life and a lot more commercials and the one thing I know for certain is that sin is fun often accompanied by happy young women and men and there are no absolutely no consequences for bad behavior If you want to be justified in y
Posted inThe Word
A Little Faith
lsquo The apostles said to the Lord lsquo Increase our faith rsquo rdquo What rsquo s the equation for increasing faith ldquo The Lord replied lsquo If you had faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree ldquo Be uprooted and planted in the sea rdquo and it wo
Posted inThe Good Word
Two New Books
Part of what has been keeping me off the blogosphere has been a collection of issues such as illness two bad colds in quick succession the SBL Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meetings and Thanksgiving This is enough to grind writing for a blog to a standstill but there is still another
Posted inThe Good Word
The Second Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians Online Commentary (8)
This is the eighth and final entry in the Second Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians Bible Junkies Commentary You can find the first entry here nbsp In the first entryI discussed introductory matters such as the origin of the Church in Thessalonica its early history with Paul Silvanus and Timo