Todd Scacewater

Todd Scacewater

Todd (PhD, Hermeneutics) serves with Wycliffe Bible Translators as a professor of international studies at Dallas International University.

The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle, edited by Christopher Shields

Among the philosophers, only Plato has made as large an impact as Aristotle. The latter a student of the former, Aristotle moved in slightly different directions and was not awarded the ownership of Plato’s academy. These two therefore made their own unique contributions, but they are inextricably tied together. In the Christian tradition, the two ancient giants, Augustine and Aquinas….

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A Guide to Every Greek Phrase in Philippians: A Huge Time-Saver for Students and Pastors

Preparing a sermon on difficult texts can be extremely time-consuming. In Philippians 1, what does Paul mean when he says “I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my salvation” (1:19)? How should the difficult Greek phrase τοῦτο φρονεῖτε ἐν ὑμῖν ὃ καὶ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (2:5) be understood? What does the word ἁρπαγμὸν mean in 2:6? To give one more example, what about everyone’s favorite word in Philippians, σκύβαλα – just exactly how strong is that word? For each of these exegetical problems, and the many more you would find in almost every paragraph of Philippians, you might need to consult a few commentaries and a couple lexicons, assuming you’re working from the Greek….

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Our Top Five Posts from 2015

2015 was a good year. We added many contributors, created 19 basic Greek videos (more to come), launched our first Greek reading series on Colossians (more to come), gained hundreds for our Basic Greek for the Week email, reviewed and highlighted tons of books, and connected with lots of new friends.

The best thing about 2015 is that we’ve found many people–students, pastors, and scholars–who are serious about the biblical languages and exegesis….

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Paul and the Gift, by John M. G. Barclay: A Crucial Corrective to the New Perspective on Paul

In 1977, E. P. Sanders wrote his landmark Paul and Palestinian Judaism, which argued that second temple Jews did not believe in meriting salvation by works, but believed Jews were included in the covenant by grace and kept in by works. Thus, Judaism, like Christianity, was a religion of grace. Since Sanders’ work, Pauline studies has not been the same. Some followed Sanders’ view of Judaism, including James Dunn who applied these results to a re-reading of Paul, dubbed the “New Perspective on Paul.” Paul did not rail against Jews trying to merit salvation, but against those who tried to use boundary markers or separation from Gentiles to prove (or vindicate?) their right inclusion in the covenant….

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Improve your Greek parsing with this creative interactive e-book

When I first started learning New Testament Greek during my early grad-school days, my second-hand copy of Bill Mounce’s classic grammar textbook was a constant companion. I deeply resonated with his morphological approach to learning Greek grammar in those early years, in large part because I recognized the wisdom of learning principles and patterns of word formation instead of memorizing paradigm after paradigm after paradigm. (For non-language nerds, “morphology” refers to how words are formed, often in relation to the way they are used in a particular sentence.)….

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Sale on Adult and Kids Bibles and Ministry Books

Lots of NIV Bibles on sale and some great looking kids Bibles. The Kid’s Storybook Bible is probably the best one out there right now, although for ages 2 or 3 and up. The three ministry books are all worth having, and if you’ve never read a book on hermeneutics, Fee and Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All its Worth is often the place to start. Enjoy, and share with others!….

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The Blackwell Companion to Paul, ed. Stephen Westerholm

Moses and Paul: these two would likely be considered the two most prominent and influential biblical authors who have shaped world civilization through Christianity. (Jesus, of course, did not write anything.) As Westerholm’s Perspectives Old and New on Paul showed us, Paul shaped the Christian theological giants theologically more than any other biblical writer. It is therefore no surprise that Pauline studies continues to be (perhaps) the most active and saturated field in biblical studies today (I’ve never heard of any seminary short on Pauline scholars)….

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Podcast: travis@exegeticaltools.com

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