Blogaround

1. Meet China’s High Heels King (February 24) Wow, I am really impressed about how this man actually understands how unworkable a lot of high-heeled shoes are, learning it through actual experience. And impressed at how well he's able to run and jump in heels.

2. Can pastors please stop salivating over women’s bodies in sermons? A response to Jonathan Pokluda’s objectification of the ‘perfect’ woman (February 24) "Women deserve better than to go to church and hear all that stops our pastors from having sex with total strangers is a Bible memory passage. We’re all for Bible memory, but we’re also for marriage vows, faithfulness and holding Christian men to at least the same moral standard as your average non-Christian husband at your local Applebee’s." PREACH!

3. Wall-E – Paradise Regained? Reflections on the Garden of Eden and Man’s Labor (January 23) "The movie causes us to ask, what do we think our future will be like? Wall-E, the movie, depicts a world that Man has destroyed through lack of stewardship, and in which they are relegated to living away from their home with technology serving their every need. At first sight, it may seem as though they live in a kind of paradise. Though they have been taken from the earth, they now live a life of pleasure. Is this heaven? Is this what some people, including many Christians conceptualize heaven to be like? No work, being served, just relaxing all the time?"

4. The Origins of the Parable of the Sower (and Other Seedy Riddles) (February 22) "This is not the parable you would tell if you were calling people to action, because it presents a deterministic view of humanity. ... However, at the meta-narrative level, this parable makes perfect sense if it is aimed at Mark’s community—especially those discouraged by a lack of success in their preaching and missionary work."

And another one from the same blog: Did Jezebel Murder Naboth? A Reassessment of Israel’s Most Notorious Queen (January 15) "This is not meant literally; we are not supposed to understand that anyone will actually be eaten by dogs and birds. Rather, such wording constitutes a curse of non-burial; telling someone that their corpse will be consumed by animals implies a shameful death and legacy. Such curses were 'a standard part of treaty and covenent formulas throughout the ancient Near East' (Cronauer, p. 26), and there are many examples outside the Bible."

5. 'Then' (February 28) "Whenever some people start talking about revival, other people will start quoting Isaiah 58." As they should. (This is another post from the Slacktivist about the Asbury revival. All of his posts on it have been extremely good.)