Checking In
It occurred to me this week that I'd left you, my loyal readers, in the dark on some of the stuff I've written and said of late. So in case any of this interests you, here goes—a few links here:
Every year I teach third graders at The Covenant School in Dallas “How to Read an Icon." I did so again in February. So fun! If you see a guy holding keys, he's probably Peter. If you see a tall skinny cross held by a solemn-looking person, he or she is probably a martyr. If he's wearing green, good chance he's John the Baptist.
A friend created a PDF from one of my blog posts as a visual for my content on seven views on women in ministry leadership within the inerrancy camp (five of them within the Complementarian camp), a topic I presented for Reformed Theological Seminary via Zoom. The post was also referenced in Christianity Today. You can find the free PDF here.
I presented on “Artemis of the Ephesians at the time of the earliest Christians” for a class at Northern Seminary. Lynn Cohick, Northern's provost and my friend, asked me to lead their DMin students on a trip to Italy similar to the one I do for DTS, only this one focused specifically on women in the visual record of the church (oh, and I got a grant to do some photography on the subject!). Slated for early January 2023.
I presented a lecture titled “Cultural backgrounds in interpreting verses about women in public ministry” for Missio Nexus missionaries last month. I did a related blog post on that for bible.org, where I post twice a month on the Engage site.
I invite you to listen in as I talk with Christine Prater on the Holy Shift Podcast: "What's Up with the Upside Down Kingdom?" We talk in a follow-up episode about “The Sermon on the Mount.”
You can also listen as I talk with Jodie Niznik about “The Betrayal of Jesus” on her So Much More podcast. That ran during Holy Week. "Kiss the Son" (Psa 2) in worship or kiss him in betrayal. What a contrast!
I taped an episode on "Feminism and Womanism" for DTS's The Table Podcast. I'll let you now when I have an air date.
Christianity Today's book editor asked me to review Aimee Byrd's latest book, and I really wanted to love it. But I had some concerns about her hermeneutics. You can read my thoughts here: “When Song of Songs Uses a Word, It Doesn’t Always Mean What We Think It Means.”
Do you use the YouVersion Bible app plans for Bible reading? If so, check out the work of two of my students, who published plans they wrote doing independent studies I supervised. One is "Known By Love: A Six-Day Devotional in 1, 2, and 3 John"; the other is an intersection of Negro Spirituals and Lamentations with music included (she rented a studio!) titled "Learning to Lament with the Spirituals: A Six-Day Devotional."
I wrote a blog post about some things that trouble me regarding how we talk about adoption. That was for The Holy Shift: Adoption
And I wrote another for them about comforting those who mourn: Quiet Presence
The Write Now Editing site ran a short post I wrote titled “Read to be a better writer” Why do you read?
April 10-12, I took/met up with some students from across the USA—from Manhattan to LA—and we attended the national conference of the Evangelical Press Association (I'm prez-elect) in Colorado. We also met up with former writing students from Dallas, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, and Colorado Springs. My former intern Seana Scott won an award for her excellent writing with Peer Magazine; and my student Radha Vyas won EPA's $2,000 Jerry Jenkins scholarship, presented by Mr. Jenkins himself. YAY! So fun to see them thriving and expanding their influence.
My Latte with Luke Bible study is late in launching. But for good reason: AMG is doing (much needed) all new covers for my Coffee Cup Bible Study series. So look for the Luke study in June.
Speaking of that series, if you have read Mocha on the Mount and never posted an Amazon review, I need only two more to make fifty, which would move it up in the search engines. Consider helping me out?
Now that I've entered grades and have graduation behind me, I'm gearing up to take twelve people to Italy with DTS in June, teaching Medieval Art and Spirituality. Please pray that the Spirit would do a great work. I have students coming from all over—from Doha, Qatar, from the Smoky Mountains, from working at Google in LA....I love the diversity of our distance students!
Debora Annino and I have a tentative date for the next writer's workshop in San Miguel de Allende Mexico. We're looking at February 8–12. Maybe you should join us? One of our 2022 attendees just landed her first book contract. YAY!
Thanks for reading. I'd love your prayer support.