Leaving Glasgow

Just about four years ago, I began a series of posts about the experience of relocating from North carolina to Glasgow; this evening, I’m beginning a series of posts about the experience of relocating from Glasgow to Oxford. So, thing one: Since moving to Glasgow, my admiration for the work of Alasdair Gray has amplified…

Cheers, Jordon!

Great news about a great blogger and a thoughtful church guy: Jordon Cooper is now VP of Community Development at Stewart Property Holdings, continuing his long work against homelessness in cooperation with local social justice agencies. Jordon, Wendy, Mark, and Oliver are long-distance heroes of mine. It was great to get together with Jordon back…

Re-Enter The Hero

This evening, while conducting important research, I learned something that startled me. I should explain that I’m a lifelong Baltimore Orioles fan, starting from when my dad took me to a Meet the Players event at Southtown Plaza in Rochester NY, and I was greeted by Red Wings players and coaches (including Luke Easter (coach),…

Leaving Taggart to Join Morse

It’s hard to adjust to the prospect of leaving Glasgow behind, when it has been such a welcoming home to us,   even though it means we’re going to Oxford, where we’re already being welcomed, and I’m bring put to satisfying work.   Apparently there are many university murders in both locations. We promise to…

Shipping News

If you had been waiting impatiently for a fresh analysis of the syntax of the Epistle of James, you can satisfy your hunger now with my long-gestating contribution to the Baylor “Handbooks to the Greek Text” series.   is now shipping. Everyone who doubted that I actually was writing a book about James (seriously, when…

Why Exegesis?

It’s a blog, not a through-composed book or essay, so I can jump from topic to topic if I want to! What is our investment in identifying our work as “exegesis” rather than less exotic words such as “interpretation”? If the word “exegesis” we’re extirpated from English usage, we wouldn’t miss much (and we would…

Building Blocks of Knowledge

Margaret and I were ambling into the office this morning, talking about her book Our Only Hope: More Than We Can Ask or Imagine (forthcoming from Pickwick Press, autumn 2013), when one of us casually referred to ‘books in print.’ Since we both have worked in bookstores and libraries at times, we shared a particular…

As It Was?

This hasn’t been much of a year for blogging for me — mostly just sermons and apologies for not blogging more. This is due partly to persistent problems with the backend software and perhaps my server company, but mostly to my falling out of the habit of blogging. Work was beastly this past year (not…

What Is Exegetical Method?

[As part of writing out a book on exegetical method — the approaches, the how-to parts, the consequences parts, and so on — I’m beginning with some introductory writing on the subject. This will probably grow into a first chapter, perhaps with my earlier posts on “What Makes Exegesis Difficult?” At any rate, this is…