The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord celebrated on February 2 2009 comes at just the right time this year a time when we ought even more to reflect on the Jewishness of Jesus Fr James Martin noted in the In All Things blog yesterday a document posted on the website of the Society of St
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.
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(Let Me) Consider Thy Servant Mary
There is no getting around it if you grew up as a Protestant or an Anabaptist Mary is often a confusing figure Not I would say an essentially divisive figure not a troubling figure but confusing The confusion stems from how to accept Mary There is a sense that Roman Catholics say too much a
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Merry Christmas
There was nothing so vulnerable in the ancient world as the life of a child The same is true in many ways even today a child s life is dependent upon those who will care for that child before the child can even know faith or trust her life is in the hands of others Yet other vulnerabilities
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The One Kept Secret for Long Ages
Snow has fallen this past week throughout Minnesota and more will be falling tonight and tomorrow and the next day In Minnesota we are not dashing through the snow – this is appropriate for one horse open sleighs but not most cars We are however dashing through Advent or at least I am One
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Concerning times and seasons
The Thessalonians had very little time with Paul Silvanus and Timothy before they were chased out of the city by a gang of ruffians as the NRSV translation has it in Acts 17 5 And yet in that short time they had turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for his Son
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“You Became Imitators of Us and of the Lord”
1 Thessalonians is the earliest letter of Paul the Apostle of which we are aware and so the earliest written document of the Church Last Sunday s second reading began with the short salutation from Paul Silvanus and Timothy to the Church in Thessalonica ending with the simple grace 1
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Galatians 6:1-18
Paul brings Galatians to an end with notes of exhortation and encouragement and yes warnings and challenges As a good parent he also manages to tell them in no uncertain terms not to make any trouble for him any longer the parental Enough Let s begin with exhortation and encouragement In
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Galatians 5:2-26
Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ you have fallen away from grace 5 3-4 Again Paul makes a charged statement about the role of the law – You w
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Galatians 4:8-5:1
Paul begins this next section by comparing the Galatians interest in the law of Moses to the stoicheia the natural elements which were sometimes treated as gods see A A Long and D N Sedley The Hellenistic Philosophers Vol 1 Cambridge 1987 280-89 The comparison is clear enough but h
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Galatians 3:15-4:7
Paul s initial argument regarding Abraham and the law of Moses is that the promise to Abraham on the basis of faith cannot be annulled by the coming of the law of Moses 430 years later see Exodus 12 40 for the likely origin of Paul s chronology What does he mean Paul argues that the promise