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Eight Million Exiles with Christopher M. Hays

We have heard a lot about refugees in the last 20 years.  War and violence drive people away from their cherished homes.  Displacement creates all manner of suffering for good and decent people. 

Christopher Hays stopped by the Lanier Theological Library recently to talk about a project he led in Colombia, South America, to address some of that suffering.

To hear the podcast click here.

Who Is Christopher Hays?

Christopher M. Hays is the president of Scholar Leaders.  Prior to that he served as a missionary and visionary in Medellin, Colombia. 

Hays earned a PhD in New Testament from the University of Oxford. For eight years he taught New Testament at the Biblical Seminary of Colombia. He was the chief investigator on the Faith and Displacement project.

Eight Million Exiles

Colombia has been in the grip of a vicioius, civil war for nearly 75 years.  In the last twenty-four years, there have been one million murders. 

Eight million people have been violently ejected from the homes  The net effect of all this deprivation, displacement, and  discouragement has deeply injured millions of people. 

Teams of scholars, friends, and church leaders banded together to do something about these casualties of war. 

Hays writes about this in his new book, Eight Million Exiles: Missional Action Research and the Crisis of Forced Migration. (Eerdmans, 2024).

The technical term for these “exiles” is Internally Displaced Persons (IDP).  The Colombian government has done little to help them. 

The UN does not typically help IDPs.  So the best group to come alongside, house, feed, counsel, and help are the thousands of Christian churches already in many of these communities.

Resources

For Dr. Hays’ book Renouncing Everything: Money and Discipleship in Luke (Paulist Press, 2016) click here.

For his book When the Son of Man Didn’t Come: A Constructive Proposal on the Delay of the Parousia (Fortress, 2017)  click here.

You can get a transcript of this podcast by, clicking here.

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

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Is Reading the Bible Enough?

Brent Sandy joins David Capes on the Stone Chapel Podcasts talking about his new book.  They met at Wheaton College a few years ago.  Brent taught at Wheaton College for a number of years, until he moved to Indiana.

To hear the podcast click here.

Who Is Brent Sandy?

Brent Sandy was born in Pennsylvania.  He is interested in how best to read the Bible and how to help the church read Scripture for all its worth. 

He earned his PhD in Classics at Duke University.  And he’s spent the better part of his life in/ with/ for church.  He loves the Church and laments that we read the Scriptures so poorly, whether in our churches or in our homes.  

Is Reading the Bible Enough?  

By asking the question this way, we run the risk of being misunderstood.  As Christians, we’re told to read the Bible.  And we should, but what does it mean to read the Bible, actually read it. 

That is what Brent Sandy is doing in his new book, Hear Ye the Word of the Lord: What We Miss if We Only Read the Bible (InterVarsity). 

First, if we don’t read the Bible in context, we may “misread” it.  Second, for us reading is a solitary process.  We do it by ourselves. 

But the Scriptures are meant to be read aloud, in a community of believers.  Third, often even our public reading of Scripture is done badly, with no thought or preparation. 

Fourth, we tend to read the Scripture in bits and pieces, a verse here, a chapter there.  Paul wrote the Galatian letter to be read at one time, in one sitting. 

This podcast explores some of these challenges.

More Resources

We have another interesting podcast about reading scripture. For Randy Richard’s podcast, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, click here.

Click here for a link to Brent Sandy’s book.

You can get a transcript of this podcast by, clicking here.

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

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“Nobody’s Mother” with Sandra Glahn

Sandra Glahn has written a book that has a lot of people talking.  She was at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston recently and talked with David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcasts.

To hear the podcast click here.

Who Is Sandra Glahn? 

Sandra Glahn is a professor of Media Arts and Worship at Dallas Theological Seminary.   She is a creative force behind a project, The Visual Museum of Women in Christianity (www.visualmuseum.gallery). 

It’s a project that is recovering some of the visual history of the Christian faith since its early centuries.  Ironically, some of visual history does not make it into the history books. 

Sandra is the wife of one husband for 45 years, a mother, a grandmother. She holds a PhD from University of Texas, Dallas, in the humanities.

“Nobody’s Mother”

In 2023 Sandra Glahn published a book she has been working on for quite some time.  It is entitled Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament (IVP Academic). 

Although she thought it might be a “woman’s book,” she found that it had attracted a lot of attention from men as well who were unsure how to read certain New Testament references.

Since the time of Jerome, Artemis had been understood to be a fertility goddess, a nurturer, a mother.  But Sandra’s research went deep into the inscriptions, texts, imagery, etc, to discoverer that she was “nobody’s mother.”

She was a hunter, filled with magic power, and often likely to kill a mother in childbirth if you ticked her off. 

Dr. Glahn draws a number of conclusions about biblical texts, like Acts 19 and 1 Timothy 2, from what she has uncovered.

Resources

Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament(IVP Academic, 2023). 

For the Visual Museum of Women in Christianity click here or type https://www.visualmuseum.gallery  into your browser.

Here’s Sandra’s book, Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible (Kregel Academic, 2017).

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“Time Has Come TODAY” with Jack Wisdom

To hear the podcast (19 min.) click here.

Jack Wisdom and David Capes have been friends for a number of years.  They were elders together for a while of a downtown Houston Church.  Jack is a devoted Christian, whose life has taken a hard turn in the last year.  Perhaps more about that another time.  He stopped by the Lanier Theological Library and joined David Capes on the Stone Chapel Podcasts.

Who Is Jack Wisdom? 

Jack is a successful trial attorney who has lived in Texas for many years.  His practice centers on labor law. He was a Dallas police officer before he and his wife, Diana, moved to Massachusetts so he could study at Gordon Conwell Seminary.  He studied under some of the greats there. 

For decade Jack and his wife worked in Young Life.  He’s responsible for training, evangelizing, and bringing order to disordered teenage lives.  Now he is the author of 3 books, all of which deserve reading.

“Time Has Come Today” 

Time Has Come Today is the third book Jack Wisdom has written.  They are definitely worth reading, because they are written by a person who knows whereof he speaks.  He has studied well, works in the original languages, and combines good communication, writing, and humor.  His chapters are short, as are his books. 

Taking his cue from Texas singer-songwriter, Robert Earl Keen, Jack makes a case that each moment we live is a gift from God.  It can either be wasted by slacking off or by keeping yourself too busy.  We decide daily, by the hour, by the moment, how to live. 

We have an adversarial relationship with time because of the fall. For most people, time is an endless succession of years, months, weeks, days, and hours.  Much of that without significance.  But we can and ought to live in matters where this day, today, matters.  Something great, important, life-changing can happen today.

Watch particularly for Wisdom’s distinction between two Greek words for time: chronos and kairos.  

More Resources

Click here for a transcript of this podcast. 

Click on the title for a link to Jack’s books:

Time Has Come Today: Time, Eternity, and the Life of Joyful Urgency

Get Low: Reflections on Pride and Humility

 Breaking Good: Repentence as a Way of Life

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The Saint John’s Bible with John Ross

What were you doing around the turn of the millennium?  Anything memorable?  Anything to be proud of? 

Well, if you were a monk from Minnesota, a world class calligrapher or an artist you may have been working on the first hand-written, hand-illuminated Bible in 500 years, that is, The Saint John’s Bible.

John Ross joined David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcasts to talk about its history, creation, and mission.  It’s a fascinating story.

To hear the podcast click here.

Who Is John Ross? 

John Ross is executive director of the Heritage Program of the Saint John’s Bible.  For three decades he served as pastor to churches in the United Church of Christ (historic Congregational churches) in Ohio and Minnesota.  

John’s church in Minnesota was gifted a Heritage copy of the Saint John’s Bible.  He saw first hand how he as a church leader could use it to bring his congregants back to Scripture.

The Saint John’s Bible

The Saint John’s Bible is a transatlantic effort.  It involves scholars, calligraphers, artists, and tons of imagination.  It is the brainchild of Don Jackson, the scribe to the House of Lords and the Queen’s Crown office.

In the 15th century the printing press was invented.   Prior to that, books like the Bible were hand-written over months and years because the materials were so expensive and the work so hard. Books were chained to library shelves and desks because they were so valuable. 

After that, books were produced by the press.  Hand-written and hand-illuminated books became a thing of the past. 

The Saint John’s Bible is a thing of beauty.  You can view images of it on the website: https://saintjohnsbible.org.

More Resources

For information about viewing a copy of the Saint John’s Bible, click here.

If you’d like to own or donate a copy to your favorite church or institution, click here.