Thanks to Matthew for pointing this out!

Among linguistic philosophers, speech act theory has illuminated the fact that uttering a sentence does not merely convey information; it may also involve the performing of an action. The concept of communicative action provides additional tools to the exegetical process as it points the interpreter beyond the assumption that the use of language is merely for descriptive purposes. Language can also have performative and self-involving dimensions. Despite their clear hermeneutical importance, the notions expressed within speech act theory have been generally neglected by biblical interpreters. The few who have applied speech act theory to the OT typically subsume the discipline into an eclectic type of literary/rhetorical criticism. Such an approach, though, tends to discount the distinctive notions expressed by theoreticians. This dissertation presents the basic philosophical concepts of speech act theory in order to accurately implement them alongside other interpretive tools. The above analysis leads to applying these concepts to Isaiah 41:21-29, 49:1-6, 50:4-10, and 52:13-53:12. These four sections intricately function within the overall prophetic strategy of chapters 40-55: the call to return or turn to Yahweh. The way these chapters describe the nature of this return is for the reader to forsake sin, acknowledge and confess Yahweh as God alone. The first passage represents the basic concerns of chapters 40-48 and specifically Jacob-Israel’s deliverance from Babylon through Yahweh’s Cyrus illocutionary act. The final three passages represent the servant leitmotif running throughout the chapters and implore the reader through self-involvement to embrace the role of Yahweh’s servant.

Read the reviews here.

Read it here.

God addresses us with His gracious summons, undresses us with His holy law, and then redresses us in the righteous robes of His Son Jesus Christ. The entire affair culminates with a meal at His table of grace, where we are fed and nourished for our continued pilgrimage to glory.

Stellman, J. (2009) Dual Citizens: Worship and Life Between the Already and the Not Yet. Reformation Trust Publishing. pp. 6

As humans the narratives we tell become those we inhabit and so form, shape and nourish our identity. As Christians we need to ensure that our identity is formed, shaped and nourished not by stories we have created but by the story of Jesus. The task of the Church is not to invent stories of conflict between the Church and the World but it should rather live out the theology of the Cross and offer healing at that point where the world hurts, where it is groaning for redemption and offer them an alternative story, a story entered into by washing (Baptism) and nourished by eating (Eucharist). We in the Church need, then, to be telling stories, stories that challenge the prevailing narratives that dominate our post-modern landscape.

In his book Silence and Honey Cakes Rowan Williams talks helpfully about our tendency to try and make other into our own image. He writes:

We love to think that we know more of God than others; we find it comfortable and comforting to try and control the access of others to God. Jesus himself speaks bluntly about this when he describes the religious enthusiasts of his day shutting the door of the Kingdom in the face of others: ‘You do not enter yourselves, and when others try to enter, you stop them’ (Matthew 23:13). And he goes on to describe how such people exert themselves to gain even one convert, but because they are only trying to make others in their own image, they make them twice as worthy of condemnation as themselves.

On this Remembrance Day I thought I would post the following from the pen of Wilfred Owen entitled Dulce et decorum est.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Whilst waiting for the rugby to start yesterday I caught the end of Autumnwatch and a story about a tree that is approximately 5000 years old. For some reason I was reminded of what Luther was supposed to have said, something along the lines of “if I knew the world would end tomorrow I would plant a tree today”. Perhaps we should take a leaf out of his book (pun intended) and plant a tree on Saturday the 5th of December!

I picked up a copy of T. F. Torrance’s Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ which looks incredibly interesting.

“Read all about it” here.