Deus Misereatur

  One time, a little over two decades ago, I taught an adult class at my church on the Old Testament biblical book, Leviticus . After one of those classes a parishioner walked up and disgustedly asked, “Why are you teaching on that book? Seriously?! None of it really matters anymore.” Even after I showed her how it clearly showed up in the New Testament, such as in Hebrews, she harrumphed and wheeled around and stormed off dismayed. So, needless to say, I was delighted when Jay Sklar, a professor of Old Testament and vice president of academics at Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, produced a new commentary on Leviticus. This 864-page hardback is part of Zondervan’s Exegetical Commentary on the Old Testament: A Discourse Analysis of the Hebrew Bible (ZECOT). Though written with those who have the technical skills in mind, it reads well and will be easily followed even by those with little to no Hebrew in their tool bag.   The format is fairly standard for the ZECOT series.

  The whole book is easily summarized in the title, "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry." John Mark Comer, founding pastor of Bridgetown Church in Portland, Oregon, author and teacher, has written this 304-page popular, breezy hardback to seek to help people push back against the divine tyrant, "Hurry." It was a noble effort that I think he successfully achieves, mostly. Since there are thousands upon thousands of ratings and reviews, I'll make mine quick-ish: cons then pros. The cons are three. The first, rather nitpicky on my part, has to do with a Greek word he references. "Keep in mind, the Greek word that we translate "salvation" is soteria ; it's the same word we translate "healing." When you're reading the New Testament and you read that somebody was "healed" by Jesus and then you read somebody else was "saved" by Jesus, you're reading the same Greek word"  (77). Actually, I don't know anywh