Kerry Lee

Thoughts on Atonement: Jesus’ Death Is God’s Forgiveness

Jesus’ death does not merely make it possible for God to forgive, nor does it merely symbolize God’s forgiveness. Jesus’ death is God’s forgiveness.

Jeremiah 1:11-12 – A Pun and Beyond

The vision in Jeremiah 1:11-12 of a staff of almond wood contains a pun in Hebrew. But there’s something else going on in the text beyond just the pun.

The Importance of the Punctuation of John 1:3-4

While the traditional reading of John 1:3-4 divides the sentences between the verses, there is some text-critical evidence that the perhaps the period should come before the last couple of words of verse 3. Which one is the correct reading, and how can we know?

Forsaking the Spring for Broken Cisterns

Jeremiah accuses the Israelites of doing something incredibly foolish: forsaking a reliable source of water for cisterns that cannot even hold water. The prophet uses this image as a metaphor for Israel’s religious infidelity.

What Jeremiah Says to Conservative Christians in America

Many politically conservative Christians in America are tempted to resist, even to the point of armed rebellion, the results of the what they believe to be an illegitimate election. But Jeremiah’s letter to the exiled Jews in Babylon would point them in a different direction.

Past, Present, and Future in John 1:15

In John 1:15 John the Baptist identifies Jesus in a way that is usually translated “The one who is coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.” I propose that all three clauses should be translated temporally something like, “The one coming after me has existed since before me, because was first before me.”

Joel and Israel’s End Time Hopes

Joel sees the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as an eschatological event, an event that demarcates what was for him the “age to come” from what was his “present age”. As Christians, we live in the “age to come” and are beneficiaries of the ideal experience of all Israel having the Spirit and prophesying that is anticipated by Moses in Numbers 11:24-30.

Translating Joel 2:32

A translation and commentary on Joel 2:32 – “And it will be that all who call upon the name of the LORD will be saved. For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be an escape, just as the LORD has said, and among the survivors, whom the LORD is calling.”

The Power of “Even Now” in Joel 2:12

If we truly have hearts that trust in God – if we truly want to join in with the faith-filled worldview of the prophet Joel – let us wait on God and believe that that even now he is both willing and able to forgive us, to save us, and to save our world.

Why Does God Send the Locust Plague in Joel?

Does Joel see God punishing Israel’s sin through the natural disasters such as the locust plague described in chapters 1 and 2? Perhaps (he has the right), but God likely has multiple purposes in a disaster. Whether we are sinful or righteous, our response to disaster ought to be the same: turn to Yahweh.