by Mark Hamilton | Oct 10, 2011 | Uncategorized
Christians and Jews have acquired unusual views of what constitutes beauty. We tend to start with the idea that God is, by definition, beautiful. I’m sure that’s true, as far as it goes. But even that’s a difficult concept, since the God of the...
by Travis Stanley | Oct 7, 2011 | Uncategorized
Graduate School of Theology Talent Show: Date: Saturday, Oct. 22 Time: 6:00 pm Location: University Church Family Room (between main building and gym) Food: Dinner provided Are you talented? People need to know. We want to believe. So bring your talents or come to see...
by Travis Stanley | Oct 7, 2011 | Uncategorized
Click on this link to see the video of Dr. Reese’s Graduate Chapel...
by Mark Hamilton | Oct 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
Applause is such a strange social phenomenon. We clap for bone-crunching tackles, masterful gymnastics routines, six year-olds at their piano recitals and famous virtuosos at theirs, baptisms and bar mitzvahs, speeches (including sermons nowadays), and a range of...
by Mark Hamilton | Sep 11, 2011 | Uncategorized
On occasion, we like to publish something by one of our alumni. Here is a brief homily by Ben Fike, a 2011 MDiv graduate and now campus minister of the University Church of Christ in Abilene. Enjoy! And, if you have a sermon of your own that you’re...
by Mark Hamilton | Sep 5, 2011 | Uncategorized
Enjoy these thoughts from Kent Smith, who teaches missions (especially for North America) here at ACU. The most vibrant, powerful and downright enjoyable people I know are those who are proactively engaged in God’s life and work. I’ve had the opportunity this summer...
by Jeff Childers | Sep 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
Dr. Jeff W. Childers, Carmichael-Walling Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, offers some reflections on his recent research trip to England: August in England...
by Mark Hamilton | Aug 30, 2011 | Uncategorized
In our own times of turmoil (what times aren’t?), the need for security seems acute. Without security, there can be no creativity, no nurturing, no healing. But where do we obtain security? Remember Henry Kissinger’s line, “Each success only buys...
by Mark Hamilton | Aug 22, 2011 | Uncategorized
Our colleague Wendell Willis, who teaches New Testament, offered this devotional in worship yesterday. Our thanks for him for sharing it. If you have worshipped with very small churches, especially in mission contexts where there are only a handful of believers in...
by Mark Hamilton | Aug 12, 2011 | Uncategorized
Psalm 45 is one of those texts that means different things to different readers. It seems to have begun its life as an epithalamium, a poem for a wedding between an Israelite king and a foreign queen. Later readers connected it to Jesus, not just because they...
by Mark Hamilton | Aug 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
After a bit of a break, this post marks a return to the Psalms. Welcome back! Reputation. The legend is that at his trial for cheating in baseball, Shoeless Joe Jackson was accosted by a young fan who said, “Say it ain’t so, Joe! Say it ain’t...
by Mark Hamilton | Jul 12, 2011 | Uncategorized
Here are some thoughts on spirituality in the Old Testament, which I take to be spirituality for those of us who don’t make good mystics but would like to make good Christians. This is from a talk given a few months ago to our faculty. I’d welcome your...
by Mark Hamilton | Jun 27, 2011 | Uncategorized
In only a few weeks, America and the world will commemorate the tenth anniversary of the infamous day in which airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, triggering a global war against terrorist organizations and their supporters, real or...
by Mark Hamilton | Jun 20, 2011 | Uncategorized
Longing for the absent lover — this is the stuff of romance. Memories of the smells and sounds of the lost relationship, memories of times shared together, memories of the last moment of touch all cascade through the mind of the one who longs for the return of...
by Mark Hamilton | Jun 8, 2011 | Uncategorized
With Psalm 41, we come to the end of the first book of the Psalter. When the collectors of the Psalms, working sometime in the 4th-2nd centuries BCE with older hymns and collections of hymns, put the finishing touches on their work, they divided it into five...
by Mark Hamilton | May 31, 2011 | Uncategorized
It’s interesting how things converge in your brain. Impressions, ideas, and reflections on both stream through seeking to stick together before something else roots them out. Yesterday, I spent time working on a survey instrument for David Miller of Princeton...
by Mark Hamilton | May 20, 2011 | Uncategorized
Psalm 39 continues the theme of repentance begun in Psalm 38 by reporting the remorseful sinner’s internal thoughts: “I said [to myself], let me keep my ways from sinning by means of my tongue; let me keep my mouth from violence [emending the Hebrew from...
by Russell Kirby | May 17, 2011 | Uncategorized
The following was written by one of our graduate theology students, Ben Griffith, and originally appeared online in the Huffington Post Religion section on May 10, 2011. “A Protestant Learns to Love the Church Fathers” by Ben Griffith Like beer and black...
by Mark Hamilton | May 11, 2011 | Uncategorized
Repentance — such an old-fashioned, churchy word, so reminiscent of unctuous preaching and Elmer Gantry hucksters. Or so some of us think. Yet, even if the word has fallen on hard times, the idea of change, of renouncing bad habits and poor commitments, of...
by Mark Hamilton | May 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
Review of Susan Campbell, Dating Jesus (Boston: Beacon, 2009). By Mark Hamilton at the 2010 Christian Scholars Conference, Lipscomb University On picking up this book, I frankly expected to hate it. What could be more clichéd than a story of a self-conscious young...
by Russell Kirby | May 3, 2011 | Uncategorized
Dr. Jack Reese (Dean of the College of Biblical Studies, Professor of Preaching) reflects on the Resurrection. [vimeo...
by Mark Hamilton | May 2, 2011 | Uncategorized
Life After...
by Mark Hamilton | May 2, 2011 | Uncategorized
How Does The Old Testament Relate to Christian...
by Mark Hamilton | Apr 27, 2011 | Uncategorized
You may have seen the movie “Joyeux Noel,” about the 1914 Christmas truce on the Western Front. Young men from Germany, Scotland, and France stop fighting for a day or two in order to sing from trench to trench and then play soccer and even celebrate mass...
by Jeff Childers | Apr 19, 2011 | Uncategorized
Dr. Jeff W. Childers, Carmichael-Walling Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity in the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University, offers some reflections on his recent trip to the Vatican Library in Rome: Sojourn in the Eternal City...
by Russell Kirby | Apr 11, 2011 | Uncategorized
A quote from the (April 7th) Abilene Reporter News article: The challenge of any translation of the Bible — or any other book — is figuring out how to handle gender, said Dr. Mark W. Hamilton, professor of Old Testament and associate dean of Abilene Christian...
