Scriptural insights for the modern-day reader and an inquiring mind are posts that engage passages of scripture taking the reader deeper into the world and culture of select biblical passages. These posts are designed to provide my readers with a different type of article in contrast to my posts on organizational leadership, leadership development and culture relative to the 21st-century church. In many of these scripture passage insights within my posts, I will be forever indebted to Kenneth E. Bailey.
Kenneth E. Bailey (Th.D., Concordia Seminary, St. Louis) is an author, lecturer and emeritus research professor of Middle Eastern New Testament studies for the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem. He spent forty years living and teaching New Testament in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Cyprus, and has written books in English and Arabic, including Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians, The Cross & the Prodigal, Poet & Peasant, Through Peasant Eyes, Jacob & the Prodigal, Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15, and The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament. Over a thirty-year period, he has collected twenty-three versions of 1 Corinthians in three languages that were translated over a 1600 year period of time.
Other books and authors I will refer to from time to time in my articles are:
- Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible, by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien.
- The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority, by John H. Walton and D. Brent Sandy.
- Africa Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary Written by 70 African Scholars, Tokunboh Adeyemo, General Editor and endorsed by Rick Warren with forwards by John R. Stott and Robert K. Aboagye-Mensah. I highly recommend this commentary having read through it in my morning devotional study time while working on my Doctor of Strategic Leadership degree at Regent University.