Pisteuomen - πιστευομεν - T. Michael W. Halcomb

Here's a Spoken Word I just wrote titled "Here Comes January". It is a both a reflection on the events of 2010 (for a list see HERE ) and a lookin' forward to those of 2011. Enjoy!

Recently, a credit card of mine slid into the console of the 2004 Kia Optima that I drive. I tried and tried to fish for the card to pull it back up through the crack it fell through but I must admit, I failed miserably. Still, I didn't give up. I came back in and tried to see if anyone else had posted directions for how to remove the console. Sad to say, I found nothing. However, my wife had the idea of moving a little inserted box underneath the armrest, so, I tried that. Voila! It worked. So, for those of you who have lost things in the console with the hopes of retrieving them, to save you some time and energy, I've made a short slideshow showing you exactly how to do it. (Note: The slideshow may take a few moments to load. Also, click on the picture to zoom-in and then, use the right arrow on your keyboard to scroll through the photos in order)

A few years back, I lived in the very cool, artsy city of Kalamazoo, MI. I really like "K-zoo" or "Kazoo" because it has a lot for kids to do and is very family-friendly. Several years ago, K-zoo's public school system actually launched an initiative called "The Kalamazoo Promise". The "Promise" offers full-tuition scholarships to students who graduate from a K-zoo public school and wish to go to a college within the state. You can read more about it HERE . As a former native of K-zoo and as one who still has friends and family there, I was a bit embarrassed this weekend when I returned and noticed a few places of business who had major grammar-fails on their signs. Following are three photos I snapped in a couple of days, which illustrate my point: In the photos of both Culver's and the school, we see the misuse of apostrophes. In the Culver's picture, the word "Todays" should have an apostrophe, while in the photo o...

So, I just visited with an old friend and half-way through the meeting, he gave me a surprise gift (thanks Tim), which was actually a gift passed on to him by another friend of mine (thank you CJG!!!), who herself is a great friend with Greg Boyd. The gift was Boyd's new book The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution . You can read more about it HERE . Now, the book itself would have been cool enough. But...it had a personalized note in it from Boyd to me, which only sweetened the deal that much more. So, thank you CJG and you too, Greg! I really look forward to digging into this one.

As 2010 comes to a close and 2011 lies on the brink of the future, I find myself reflecting a lot on the past 12 months of my life. I've had a tough year in many ways. I've struggled on many fronts. I've learned a lot about myself, about what I need to work on, where I need healing, how I need to proceed in the future in dealing with certain issues, etc. In short, I'm a total work-in-progress. Add to that the following confession: I'm afraid of becoming what I call an "Awkward Academic"! I illustrate this with the picture of The Office's Michael Scott lecturing at "The Temp" Ryan's Business College. In that episode, Scott just bombs because he totally cannot relate to people. His social skills are just terrible, as are his teaching skills! You know what I'm talking about don't you? The teacher or professor or researcher who thrives in the academic world but struggles in every other area at life. I fear becoming the educ...

It is this time of year when I often hear folks lamenting (especially preachers!!!) over how "commercialized" Christmas has become. On the one hand, folks want to complain that the "reason for the season" has been forgotten, but on the other hand, they get right out in the mix with everyone else and shop. But I wonder if, instead of whining or putting on guilt-trips, we could finally just say that the commercialism can be quite a good thing?!? If we go back and look at the story of St. Nicholas himself, a bishop of Myra in 40 CE, we find that the feast / festival or holiday that has come to be associated with him, has always carried a sense of gift-making, gift-buying and/or gift-giving. The spirit in which St. Nick (or Sinterklaas in Dutch and now Santa Claus in English) and his giving charades are celebrated today is not all a bad thing. I mean, on the one hand, we are boosting the economy when we get gifts (that is, if we buy them), which can be a good thing...

The question posed in the title of this post is an interesting one. Many times, when people ponder this question, they are also asking something like "How do I tell my kids the truth about Santa?" or "Is it wrong for my Christian kids to celebrate a Christmas that has Santa included in it?" For me, however, I think the question raised in this post's title is a good starting place for all such questions. This year at Christmastime, my daughter is 3 and 1/2 years old. For the first time, she's beginning to associate Santa with the holiday. Just as well, my wife and I have already started to tell her the truth about Santa. The truth is: Santa was real but no longer exists! However, the truth is, a man named Saint Nicholas, the person on whom our modern day Santa Claus is really based, did exist at one time and to be sure, was real! Saint Nicholas of Myra was a bishop around 4 CE. He was known for both his seriousness and his practice of giving gifts, e...

At Christmastime especially, it is not uncommon to hear Jesus being referred to as Emmanuel. Or wait, is it Immanuel? Christmas cards say it, parishoners and carolers sing it, preachers wax eloquent on it, churches are named after it, but...How is it really spelled? Well, the question isn't really "How is it "spelled?", the question is "How is it transliterated in English?" Because it is a name, we transliterate. Transliteration is not the same as translation. Whereas translation is a "meaning for meaning" equivalent, transliteration is merely a "letter for letter" equivalent. So, that's what we're going for...a letter for letter equivalent. There are three verses, then, in the Bible where the name is used. Two of those are in Hebrew (Isa 7.14 and 8.8) and one of them is in Greek (Mt 1.23). In Isaiah, we find a Hebrew compound used: (עִמָּ֥נוּ אֵֽל) ʿimmānû + ʾēl (immanu means "with / together with", while El m...

In addition to yesterday's post, here's another creative re-telling of the nativity in a modern context passed on to me by my father-in-law:

So, if Mary & Joseph were alive today and the incarnation was going to happen today, if God were going to send His Son today to the West, to be incarnate among us today, just how would that happen? Would God contextualize himself among us? Here's one way it might look :) HT: EB

For a while now, I have been dwelling on the concept of resentment. To be sure, resentment has been a major topic of philosophical debate throughout the years. On the one side, some have suggested that resentment is valuable, while on the other side it has been demonized and set up as the antithesis of forgiveness. However, I am becoming more and more convinced that, like many of our emotions, feelings of resentment can be both good and healthy. Of course, to many this may sound completely odd. I mean, in Western culture, much of whose bedrock is built on Graeco-Roman philosophy and over-simplistic Judaeo-Christian readings of scripture, we grow up hearing "Do not harbor resentment (with the implication that it is either unhealthy physically or spiritually)" or "You have to let go of your resentment so you can move on". But are such statements really true? For example, is it really the case that holding on to resentment is unhealthy either in the spiritual or ...

I just received word that my paper for the annual 2011 Central States Society of Biblical Literature conference was accepted. I believe this will be my 20th paper at a scholarly conference, which is pretty cool! Anyway, it was welcomed into the "Paul" section and is titled "'The Vacillation' as the Occasion: 2 Corinthians, Epistle of a Two-Faced Apostle?" Here's the abstract: The occasion of 2 Corinthians has been a matter of scholarly debate for centuries. Certainly, the epistle itself reveals Paul as defending himself against numerous charges, one of which is "the vacillation" (1:17). This paper argues that by situating the concepts of consistency-inconsistency in their ancient contexts, using the sociological tenets of "facework" and taking into consideration the theme of "face" throughout the letter, new light can be shed on the circumstances surrounding the occasion of 2 Corinthians."

So, it is now official, this spring I will be a TA (Teaching Assistant, which mainly means grading papers and being available to students) for Dr. Ben Witherington. Also, my application for a TI position (Teaching Intern, which consists of delivering 7 of 13 class lectures, grading and being available to students) to work with Dr. Fred Long was accepted, which means I have been hired to work with him. I'm super excited about these opportunities. For Dr. Witherington, I'll be working with the NT520 class (NT Theology) and with Dr. Long, I'll be instructing in the BS505 class (Intro to Biblical Studies / NT) and assisting with NT634 (Exegesis of Galatians) and NT901 (NT Research Methods).

This is on-point, check it out (if the video doesn't load right away, click the center of it and it will begin):

As many of you may know, there has been considerable conversation about new policies regarding students and student paper presentations at the SBL Annual Meetings. The Student Advisory Board (SAB) has been collecting feedback for a response to be sent to the SBL Executive Council. As part of this response, we would like to include the results of a short survey gauging your responses to these new policies. This will allow us who are on the SAB to present hard data alongside written feedback. If you can, please take just a couple of minutes and fill out this survey. (Click the image-link to the left and the survey will open in a new window.)

Well, since my interest in both Ethiopia and Ethiopic Studies continues to grow, I figured that it was about time to start learning to read Amharic. Interestingly, when I spent the past summer in Ethiopia, I picked up on spoken / conversational Amharic pretty well. However, if I ever hope to get to Ge'ez and other Ethiopic languages, I figured it'd be best to start with Amharic. To kick it off, here's a nifty little study aid I created, which I've appropriately titled "Halcomb's Interactive Amharic Alphabet." Of course, there are 33 markings in the Amharic alphabet and each of those, with their separate 7 vowel points combine to form a complete alphabet of 231 primary markings / letters. Then, there are variations off of these, which I will not go into now. Anyway, I thought I'd share this with you all, just in case one day, you might have an interest. Besides, if you try to do what I'm doing, that is, learning one row of letters per day, yo...

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                                  M   T   W   Th   F   S   Su When Painting Advent Refound Your Pneumatic Essence Bosom Friend Heart To Heart I Will Pray For Presence An Acrostic Prayer (Click the title of the prayer to visit the site)

Here's a fun little project I spent a couple hours writing and recording tonight. Ahhh, it's refreshing writing something like this, which is a bit of a step away from the typical scholarly research papers I do. Anyway, give it a listen and let me know what you think. If you liked this, you might also like my Advent: A Spoken Word Poem

Here is a compilation of pasts posts here on Pisteuomen dealling with Christmas and the birth of Jesus. Most of these are from a series titled "Jesus' Birth In Context". I have also listed some back posts from last Christmas. So, here's a list of twelve posts dealing with the birth of Jesus and the Infancy Narrative(s). Enjoy. * God-man Talk At Christmas: Jesus' Birth In Context, Pt. 7 * Was Mary Scandalous? Was She Raped?: Jesus' Birth In Context, Pt. 6 * The Magi: Jesus' Birth In Context, Pt. 5 * Was Jesus' Birth Unique?: Jesus' Birth In Context, Pt. 4 * A Miraculous Conception?: Jesus' Birth In Context, Pt. 3 * Jesus & Prophecy: Jesus' Birth In Context, Pt. 2 * Born Of A Virgin?: Jesus' Birth In Context, Pt. 1 * Jesus' Genealogy At Christmastime * Why December 25th? * Rethinking "The Inn": Christmas Tradition Vs. Scripture, Pt. 3 * Was Jesus Born In A Cave? Christmas Tradition Vs. Scripture, Pt. 2 * Erroneous Ch...

I am pleased to announce the "Call for Papers" for this year's session "Mark's Gospel in Mediterranean Context" which will be held in Cincinnati, OH at the annual Stone-Campbell Journal Conference. If you have an interest in Mark's Gospel and the socio-cultural context that intersects with it, submit your title and abstract to the email address listed on the flyer to the left ( michael dot halcomb at asburyseminary dot edu ). In addition to our wonderful session on Mark's Gospel this year, three wonderful keynote speakers will also be speaking on the topic of the "Extraordinary" that is, "The Body, Demons, and Miracles." This year's keynote speakers are: Luke Timothy Johnson (Emory University), who will present "The Body and Resurrection in Corinthians: The Ontological Body and the Social Body", Loren Stuckenbruck (Princeton Theological Seminary), who will speak on "Demonology in the Synoptic Gospels"...

Hey friends, when you get a minute, head over to my totally revamped, flip-book, journal-style website called Virtual Prayers . You can check it out by click HERE or the image-link to the left.

Here is a brief little "Spoken Word" that I wrote for Advent 2010. (*Update: I have also added an audio-only version below*) (Audio version)

Today is a special day for several reasons, two of which have to do with Ethiopia. First, exactly one year ago today, my wife and I brought home our son Silas, whom we adopted from Ethiopia. So, it is a sort of Homecoming Day for us. Second, it was this week last year that I first started designing the HelpKorah organization and site. As many of you may recall, NOTHING could be found on the internet prior to this date one year ago related to Korah. Now, if you google it you will find tons of material. That is because many people have started going there! Praise God. So, on this day, I am thankful for all of these things and I want to thank all of you have been and continue to be supportive of me, my family, HelpKorah and the people of Korah. Thank you so much!

This year, my New Years Resolution was going to be to journal / blog a prayer every day for 365 days. Well, I don't want to wait another month! So, I figured, what better time to start than with the season of Advent? Today, then, I am reviving my online prayer place " Virtual Prayers ". I am going to do my best to write a prayer about seeking God's presence for an entire year. I would challenge others of you out there to join me in this spiritual journey whether through reading my offerings or, journaling online yourselves. In fact, I'll just go ahead and call this "The Advent Challenge". I think it would be an extraordinary thing to have a few folks to do this with. So, if you're interested, email me or leave a comment here. For now, head over to Virtual Prayers and see today's entry: When Painting Advent .

Whenever the young earth creationists of Answers in Genesis are mentioned these days, especially the organization's front-man, Ken Ham, it is quite easy to find a mud slinging event somewhere nearby. In fact, many so-called Christians have treated Ken Ham in quite un-Christian ways. While I definitely do not agree with everything Ken Ham says and while I purposefully distance myself from many of the interpretive moves that AIG espouses, I also purposefully distance myself from those who go out of their way to beat him down. As a resident of Kentucky and as someone who visited the AIG campus both prior to its opening and even afterwards, I can say that many of the rumors about the creation museum and its founder are slanted, biased and/or often unfounded. So, it really is no surprise to me that with the announcement of Ham's latest project, the arrogance and pseudo-piety of many so-called Christians has once again surfaced. This new project titled " The Ark Encounter ...

The one who has A Masters of Divinity Has mastered Divinity not And the one who has Mastered the pen Eventually becomes a blot For the writer’s words Outlive the writer, yes The page is their home to dwell Made up of many letters And old recycled characters It’s really Time’s story to tell -T. Michael W. Halcomb, Dec. 2010 Inspired by George Steiner’s “Uncommon Reader”