Posted on

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

Posted on

The Early High Christology Club with Carey Newman

The Stone Chapel Podcast

The Early High Christology Club (EHCC) was a loose association of scholars from various backgrounds and different religious traditions.

They all  became convinced that the early circles of the Jesus movement regarded their Lord as having “high” or divine status. 

Carey Newman, executive editor at Fortress Press, joins David Capes on “The Stone Chapel Podcast” to talk about the beginning and contribution of the “club” to modern scholarship. 

Both Capes and Newman were founding members of the club, and unfortunately, they are the only surviving  members. 

Over the roughly 25 years the club “met,” it boasted some of the most significant voices in New Testament Studies: Larry Hurtado, Alan Segal, Paula Fredriksen, Donald Juel, April DeConick, Martin Hengel, Pheme Perkins, N. T. Wright, Marianne Meye Thompson, Richard Hays and a host of others. 

As an informal club, it had no membership.  But scholars who heard of the group wanted to become members and own one of the coveted coffee mugs produced by Baylor University Press. 

To be a member, a scholar needed to have written books or articles making the case that the evidence demonstrates that Jesus is worshiped from early moments of the movement and set in such close association with God that he could properly be referred to as divine. 

After relating the “founding myth” of the organization in the mid-1990s Carey Newman situates the club within the stream of scholarship. 

Some regard the worship of Jesus to be a later development in the first century (60-70 years after the execution of Jesus).  Others think it happened much later (hundreds of years).  But members of the EHCC generally make the case that historically it arose for various reasons within the first decade of the movement. 

Several Early High Christology Club members have lectured at the Lanier Library: Larry Hurtado, Richard Hays, Mike Bird, and N. T. Wright.  Among the special collections, the library has the libraries of two of the founding members: Alan Segal and Larry Hurtado.  It also houses many of the books of Peter Davids and David Capes, two key members.

The late Larry Hurtado’s blog is a good source of information about the club as well as all things New Testament:  https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com

The title of the book neither David or Carey could remember was Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children: Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity (Baylor University Press, 2007).

To hear the podcast click here.

Posted on

Who Really Fears God? with Andy Abernethy, Jonah 1

Andrew Abernethy, Wheaton College

Dr. Andrew Abernethy, Associate Professor of Old Testament and Director of the M.A. in Biblical Exegesis in Wheaton Graduate School, has authored God’s Messiah in the Old Testament: Expectations of a Coming King. In this conversation with Dr. Capes, he traces the vocabulary of “fearing” as used of the prophet Jonah and the pagan sailors in the book of Jonah. How is the author of that narrative developing our understanding of a right “fear” of the true God?

To hear the podcast click here.

“Exegetically Speaking” is a weekly podcast of the friends and faculty of Wheaton College, IL and The Lanier Theological Library. Hosted by Dr. David Capes, it features language experts who discuss the importance of learning the biblical languages—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek—and show how reading the Bible in the original languages “pays off.” Each podcast lasts between seven and eleven minutes and covers a different topic for those who want to read the Bible for all it is worth.

If you’re interested in going deeper, learn more about Wheaton’s undergraduate degree in Classical Languages (Greek, Hebrew, and Latin) and our MA in Biblical Exegesis. 

You can hear Exegetically Speaking on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. If you have questions or comments, please contact us at exegetically.speaking@wheaton.edu. And keep listening. 

Posted on

Teeny Tykes and Tunes–Pamela Vandewalker

Pamela Vandewalker

Pamela Vandewalker has an interesting job. She directs worship programming at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, GA, a worshipping community of roughly 7000 people. She is the author of many books and a composer of about 75 hymns for children.  She stopped by recently to talk with David Capes on “The Stone Chapel” about her life, her battles with cancer, and how hymns fed her soul and encouraged her through the toughest battles of life.  She is a strong advocate of singing and making music in the homes because it imprints on the lives of our children. Churches can and should do more to train up parents in creating music makers not just music consumers at home. To know more about this Dove Award Winner and her passion for worship and equipping a new generation of worshippers, go to www.teenytykesandtunes.com.

    To hear the podcast click here.

    The Stone Chapel is a podcast of the friends and staff of the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas.  It is hosted by Dr. David Capes, Senior Research Fellow at the library and former faculty member at Houston Baptist University and Wheaton College.  The purpose of the podcast is to bring to our audience great conversations from the world’s leading experts in theology, biblical studies, archaeology, Church history, the Dead Sea Scrolls, ethics, ministry, and a host of other topics close to the mission of the library.

    The Lanier Theological Library is a magnet for scholars, church leaders and influencers.  For the last ten years, it has welcomed hundreds of academics and church leaders from across the globe for public lectures, study, panel discussions, consultations, and encouragement.

    These podcasts as well as the Lanier library and the Stone Chapel are generously underwritten by Mark and Becky Lanier and the Lanier Theological Library Foundation.  If you have questions or comments, please be in touch: Email david.capes@lanierlibrary.org

    Posted on

    “Then Sings My Soul”–Robert Morgan

    Robert Morgan, Teaching Pastor,
    The Donelson Fellowship

    Robert Morgan, teaching pastor at the Donelson Fellowship in Nashville, TN, has authored more than twenty books.  He lectured at the Stone Chapel on August 21, 2021. While at the library, he talked with David Capes on “The Stone Chapel Podcasts” about his series, Then Sings My Soul published by Thomas Nelson, particularly the third volume in that series. Morgan has been dubbed “the dean of American hymnody” by our own Dr. Capes and is doing more than anyone we know to promote the singing of music old and new in our churches. Older people, he says, need to sing the latest music, and young people need to sing the legacy music. Rather than segregating traditional and contemporary services, which effectively creates different congregations, Morgan advocates for intergenerational worship and training young and old alike to appreciate the music o.

    To hear the podcast (22 minutes) click here.

    The Stone Chapel is a podcast of the friends and staff of the Lanier Theological Library in Houston, Texas.  It is hosted by Dr. David Capes, Senior Research Fellow at the library and former faculty member at Houston Baptist University and Wheaton College.  The purpose of the podcast is to bring to our audience great conversations from the world’s leading experts in theology, biblical studies, archaeology, Church history, the Dead Sea Scrolls, ethics, ministry, and a host of other topics close to the mission of the library.

    The Lanier Theological Library is a magnet for scholars, church leaders and influencers.  For the last ten years, it has welcomed hundreds of academics and church leaders from across the globe for public lectures, study, panel discussions, consultations, and encouragement.

    These podcasts as well as the Lanier library and the Stone Chapel are generously underwritten by Mark and Becky Lanier and the Lanier Theological Library Foundation.  If you have questions or comments, please be in touch: Email david.capes@lanierlibrary.org