You either come to the text with a view of what is and isn’t possible in the world, which won’t allow any fresh evidence - which is not, perhaps, the best way of approaching a book like John, which is all about the challenge of the gospel to all existing world-views - or you come with at least an open mind to new possibilities hitherto unimagined. This isn’t the same as being gullible, or credulous. Nor are the extraordinary stories in the gospels designed, as some seem to have imagined, to portray Jesus as being able to do anything at all, simply for the sake of making a supernatural display. They are there, rather, as moments in the text when the strange glory of the Word-made-flesh shines through, not so much because Jesus can do whatever he wants but because this particular thing is so closely associated with what Israel’s God does at a key moment in Israel’s history. -N.T. Wright, John For Everyone, Vol 1, p.76
Parable of the Soils - Dr. Cyndi Parker | 8.4.24
With Christ as our true teacher, we are called to a lifelong journey of joint inquiry in which we seek to embody Scripture wisely and faithfully in Christian community. After all, even as we apprentice ourselves to Christ and to saintly exemplars before and around us, we are simultaneously called to live in such a way that others will want to apprentice themselves to us. - L. Gregory Jones, "Embodying Scripture in the Community of Faith"
Is Grace Fair? - Dr. Cyndi Parker | 7.28.24
When we ignore or minimize the importance of the original context, our default position will be to fill in the textual backdrop with our own social context. In other words, we will assume that things in the biblical context are just like they are in our own. So there is no way to attain a reading of a biblical text without a context. - Jeannine K. Brown, Scripture as Communication