Site changed
I have moved the site to a word press based system. It was the easiest of the options that I tried. There are also many community generated themes and plugins to make it very workable. Please change the RSS feed address for my site to revision29.com/feed/
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Joe Schneider (joe@revision29.com) - 03/17/2010
Site Reworking
I am probably going to be taking this version of my website offline. It will be replaced by a pre-made content management system with minimal effort. I am doing this primarily to make the site into a portfolio for my peaching career. Since I will be applying for preaching opportunities in the near future, I want a digital place to put ministry employment information. A result of this is that prior content will be archived and mostly inaccessible. This is both good and bad. I am not happy with my previous writing quality, and this change will spur me to create new articles written with better style and more source documentation.
I will probably shift the content to revision29.com/archive, assuming that is compatible with the CMS of my choosing. I may use something like WordPress, concrete5, or BlueSkyCanvas. I will probably choose from one of the latter two.
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Joe Schneider (joe@revision29.com) - 03/15/2010
Time and the Message
I have been taking a class on Biblical interpretation for ministry. We have been working through how to interpret the various genres represented in Scripture. Time and time again, we are memorized as our professors help us to uncover the meanings of various passages because we are confronted with insights that almost shock us with what a Biblical author was actually "saying." The most common issue is context.
Context considers the historical and textual context of a passage. The historical is usually easy to discover as there are many wonderful resources available for that purpose. However, fitting a passage into its literary context is not so easy. It requires looking at the genre of a passage (which might require looking at how the passage fits in the surrounding context), how the passage fits in with surrounding stories, parables, plot lines, character developments, and so on. It is tough work, but extremely rewarding. When things are placed in the proper context, a reader can quite clearly see what the author meant and why he arranged the material the way he did. Some of the principles that we are being taught are the same tools used to describe non-biblical literature, and have proved themselves necessary for understanding a piece of literature.
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Joe Schneider (joe@revision29.com) - 02/21/2010
An Unlikely Mission
Here is the recording of my latest sermon. The title is "An Unlikely Mission," which is based on Mark 1:16-20. Since I recorded it, I thought I would share it with the world.
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Joe Schneider (joe@revision29.com) - 02/7/2010
Binding and Loosing in Matthew 16
[As usual this is a roughly worded/formatted article. I am thinking out loud and looking for some input from others. In other words, I am seeking some peer review.]
I have been working through Matthew 16 for NT independent class. My goal is to compare the reactions of the disciples with the religious rulers to determine what is the difference between these groups not getting Jesus. My thesis for the paper that I will produce as the fruit of my study relates to why there is a difference between these two groups not getting it. I'll save the reason for later. I am having a hard time wording my thesis in a comprehensible manner. It is really a secondary issue that I am hoping to extrapolate from the text, which makes it a little hard to put down on paper.
I have not approached an exegetical project in this way. That is, I am looking at a theme that might not be something Matthew was trying to show, but is based on a pattern that I have deduced from the text. So my method is to exegete the text properly, then once I have a proper interpretation, see if the pattern I have deduced is valid. Usually I like to take the idea / thesis straight from the text itself or make the thesis what I think the passage means. In this case the meaning becomes the foundation for making sure I understand the text properly and then I build on top of that to demonstrate my thesis. It will make sense once I make public my thesis /summary of my paper.
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Joe Schneider (joe@revision29.com) - 11/27/2009
March 2010
February 2010