Photo by Matthew Hamilton on Unsplash
It saddened us to hear of the passing of Gordon Fee, whose work is well known and his legacy now set in motion. Gordon gave me the opportunity of a lifetime to write Colossians and then also Philemon for the NICNT. His offer came as we were standing waiting for a cab, I believe in New Orleans. Countless others know of the generosity of this man. Professors of Bible who cannot but preach take their example in Gordon Fee, who was empowered by God’s presence and is now empowered in God’s presence.
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Professor Emeritus Dr. Gordon D. Fee. Gordon died October 25, 2022, in New York City.
Gordon was a beloved member of Regent’s faculty, serving as Professor of New Testament from 1986 to 2002. Following his retirement and appointment as Professor Emeritus, Gordon served the College as a favorite sessional instructor until 2009. He was a treasured colleague, teacher, friend, and pastor to many.
Gordon brought a remarkable store of intellect and pastoral concern to New Testament scholarship and to his teaching. He was often quoted as saying, “The concern of the scholar is primarily with what the text meant; the concern of the layperson is usually with what it means. The believing scholar insists that we must have both.”
His books How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (co-authored with Douglas Stuart), and God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul continue to be seminal works and best sellers. Gordon also wrote highly-regarded commentaries on 1 and 2 Timothy, 1 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Revelation.
Gordon is considered one of the finest textual critics of the twentieth century and an expert on pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit. In 1990 Gordon was selected to succeed the revered F. F. Bruce as the editor of the noted New International Commentaries series, a role he carried out until 2012.
A Kentucky coal miner who rushed straight from work to take his family to a University of Kentucky Wildcats practice game is on the shortlist for father of the year and earned praise from legendary coach John Calipari, who shared a picture of him and expressed admiration for his hard work and dedication to his son.
The photo, which has now gone viral, shows Michael McGuire and his son sitting in the stands at Saturday’s Blue-White Game scrimmage that was played in Pikeville, in Eastern Kentucky.
McGuire is still wearing his work uniform and heavy boots and his face and arms are covered in black coal dust.
Kentucky fan Sue Kinneer took the photo and posted it on several Wildcats fan pages on Facebook in hopes that someone from the coach’s staff would see it and send the little boy an autograph.
The plan worked better than she hoped and Calipari shared the photo on social media.
“My family’s American dream started in a Clarksburg, WV coal mine, so this picture hits home. From what I’ve been told, after his shift, he raced to be with his son & watch our team. Don’t know who this is, but I have tickets for him & his family at Rupp to be treated as VIPs!!,” Calipari tweeted. (The Rupp Arena is the home of the University of Kentucky basketball team.)
McGuire had not yet been identified at that point, but Kentucky fans quickly found him and connected the coach with the family.
McGuire told CNN affiliate WKYT that he was at work underground while all this was happening and had no idea any of it was going on.
“When I got out and got service on my way home, it went crazy … I couldn’t believe that it was real,” he told WKYT.
David Moore interviews David Ford on his John commentary, which is indeed brilliant:
Moore: What are a few things you hope your readers benefit from by reading your book?
Ford: There are, I think, three main things which I have received and which I would love all readers to have. I highlight them both in my Introduction to the Gospel and in the Epilogue which reflects on my experience in writing the commentary.
First, there is the horizon of God and all reality, as opened up by the Prologue and running all through the gospel. Perhaps its greatest breadth and depth are opened up in the prayer of Jesus in John 17 (which for me has become the most profound chapter of the Bible). It is a worldview that unites unsurpassable depth and breadth of meaning with unsurpassable depth and breadth of love.
Second, there is Jesus. Who Jesus is is the central concern of this Gospel. Each chapter adds to our understanding. The great desire of John is for readers to meet Jesus, trust Jesus, and live their whole lives as his followers, to the extent of mutual indwelling in love (this theme is at its richest in John 15 and 17). That is also what I long for for myself and my readers.
Third, there is the life of discipleship. This is essentially about three things: learning, loving and praying. The Farewell Discourses (Chapters 13-17) have wave after wave of teaching on all three, culminating in Jesus bringing them together in his final prayer. So, for myself as well as my readers, I want to mature in that sort of learning, loving and praying.
A cricket gauge? Or, crickets as a gauge?
Crickets can’t predict the weather, but their chirp can tell you the temperature.
Crickets are ectotherms — meaning their body temperature depends on the temperature of their surrounding environment.
Much like a sluggish bumblebee on a cool spring morning or a lizard sunning on a rock, crickets move slower in cooler temperatures.
As crickets warm, they can rub their wings together faster, which is how male crickets make the nightly repetitive chirp they use to attract mates.
The relationship between cricket chirping and the temperature has been noted for a long time. In Western science, it is called Dolbear’s law after the most widely referenced early publication on the phenomenon published in 1897 by Amos Dolbear.
His article is called “The Cricket as a Thermometer,” according to Almanac.com, and it discusses the correlation between a cricket’s chirp rate and the ambient temperature.
“The warmer the temperature, the easier the cricket’s muscles activate, so the chirps increase,” according to the Almanac. “The cooler the temperature, the slower the reaction rate, and the less frequent the chirps.”
In various contexts, I often hear or read the word biblical. In my experience, it’s typically used in reference to theological perspectives, moral decisions, or worldviews in general. One might, for instance, refer to biblical views on wealth and possessions, social justice, or marriage. Each time I encounter that particular adjective, I pause to consider what the speaker or writer means by it. Oddly, the longer I’ve studied the Bible, the more difficult I find it to nail down what exactly it means for something to be biblical. To be sure, I believe we should draw on Scripture to inform our lives, but I’ve found that the term can be used in a variety of ways.
For example, one could label something biblical to refer to what the Bible says about a given topic. Should Christians judge others? Jesus explicitly says not to do so (Matt 7:1–5). Thus, the biblical perspective on judgment is that Christ-followers shouldn’t do it. Simple enough! Yet things get complicated when the Bible seems to say more than one thing about a given subject, such as slavery, what roles women play in Christ-following communities, or how gentile believers should relate to the law. If our Scripture contains diverse witnesses, then which texts support the biblical view?
That approach is also complicated when we compare certain parts of the Bible with contemporary Christian practices that are taken for granted by much of the church. Why, for instance, do most American churches rarely, if ever, discuss the wearing of head veils if Paul believes so strongly that women should cover their heads in worship? Based on 1 Cor 11:2–16, it would seem reasonable to conclude that veiling in church services is the biblical thing for women to do, a conclusion reached by some Orthodox traditions.From another point of view, one could identify as biblical what we perceive to be the underlying truth or motivation of a text. Some understand biblical interpretation as efforts to peel back the historically or culturally contingent aspects of Scriptures to find universal, timeless truths that should guide theology and practice. For example, for Christian greetings to be biblical, must we literally kiss one another, as Paul so consistently instructs (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Thess 5:26)? The answer according to this view would likely be no. Instead, we can remove the historical-cultural “husk” of Paul’s exhortation—literal kisses—and embrace his core message—to greet one another with hospitality and affection—which we can practice in contemporary, culturally specific ways.
That approach also has its challenges. If every single sentence in the Bible—indeed, every word!—is in some way culturally conditioned, how do we decide what’s contingent and what’s “for all time”? Moreover, how do we make those decisions in consistent ways?
Things become even more complicated when we seek a “biblical view” on a pressing concern that the Bible does not directly discuss. What, for example, is the biblical view of COVID-19 vaccinations, genetic engineering, or investment in the stock market? Christians ought to have theologically informed opinions about such issues, but what makes a given view biblical?
My suspicion is that we fluctuate between the above options, and others, without realizing it. And my goal here isn’t to argue for a specific definition. I merely want to stress a single point: biblical interpretation is much more complex than we often acknowledge.
The future of Christian colleges, by Chris Gehrz:
Today I turn 47 years old. So I’m not just halfway through my career, but (if my mom’s family genes hold) about halfway through my life. So I’ve been taking stock… and for all there is to celebrate, that process hasn’t been entirely pleasant.
As I wrote on Tuesday, I’m always hopeful for the renewal of Christianity. But that doesn’t mean I’m optimistic that current Christian institutions will continue to thrive, even survive, in something like their present form. Unfortunately, that pessimism extends to Christian colleges and universities like my own.
Don’t misunderstand me: I’m glad that a newspaper story reporting on Bethel’s latest round of program and position eliminations also includes cheerier updates from our president on growth in early college and graduate programs. At the levels of my individual courses, my department, and my faculty committee, I still see numerous reasons for gratitude, joy, and satisfaction.
And everything below is written in the hope that it’s ultimately proven wrong.
See, I like my bosses and wish them success. But even if they have put us on more stable fiscal footing and set us up for new growth, I don’t think we yet know how to solve three fundamental problems that are eating away at schools like ours.
Really nice tribute to Gordon Fee. I wonder if anyone can tell me if ‘God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul’ covers similar material to Fee’s other (and less expensive) book, ‘Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God’.