Praying the Psalms in Christ
In this short series, I have explored some of the special challenges that come in interpreting the Psalms of lament as Christian scripture. We have seen how this is not…
Todd Billings
The Hermeneutics of Lament (Part 3)
In this post in this short series, I offer a typology of interpretive approaches to biblical lament. The typology is rough, not comprehensive; my examples come from the “left,” “right,”…
The Hermeneutics of Lament (Part 2)
The Rule of Faith and Biblical Lament Anger. Loss. Rage. The Psalmist expresses each of these in those mysterious Psalms – the Psalms of lament. An increasing number of Christians…
The Hermeneutics of Biblical Lament (Part 1)
What is the fruit of biblical interpretation? For example, in interpreting anceint texts such as the Psalms, should our primary goal be to reconstruct the ancient Psalmist’s meaning? Or, for…
The Spirit and Scripture: More than Divine Advice
Loss. A car accident — with a “recovery” expected to last five years. Maybe ten. Maybe for the rest of this mortal life. Poverty — not just for a year,…
Joining the Resistance: Lament and the Kingdom [Part 4]
In previous posts, I have suggested that the question of suffering before God needs to remain an open question – a question that we, along with the Psalmists, bring before…
Divine Providence: Occupying The Mysterious Middle [Part 3]
How can we avoid the extremes of monocausal fatalism, on the one hand, and open theism which insists that some events are “pointless” even to God, on the other? As…
Avoiding the Dead Ends of Providence: Monocausal Fatalism and Open Theism [Part 2]
As I explored in the previous article in this series, my cancer diagnosis forced me to join the Psalmists in prayer more deeply than I had ever done before. I…
Lament: Self-Indulgent Whining, or Faithful Complaints? [Part 1]
Who likes a complainer? Complainers are unsettling to be around. Holiday meals ruined by laborious and endless complaints about how life has shortchanged them – the car that broke down…