Pisteuomen - πιστευομεν - T. Michael W. Halcomb

A friend recently asked me to help create a reading plan that covered the Pauline Corpus in the time frame of a year. So, I used a nifty little app I have and I created the following timeline below, which goes from Romans to Hebrews (yes, I included Hebrews!). The plan starts at Feb 1 since the new year has already started but it can be modified easily enough. Also, it is only like 5-10 verses per day, which is easy enough, even in Greek. Anyway, here it is, enjoy:

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my New Year's resolution was to read the Greek New Testament at least once all the way through, from start to finish, this year. I set up a reading plan for myself, which is pretty rigorous given all the things I have going on. However, I am sticking to it. I'm pleased to say that I'm still on track. So far, I have completed both Mt and Mk. Tomorrow, I begin Lk, which will take about a week and a half. I will say, it has been very enlightening reading through the New Testament this way. I have really started to see the little idiosyncrasies of the writers, that is, the little phrases they like to use over, their favorite words or images, etc. This is very cool to pick up on. I've also noticed word connections throughout each narrative that I've never noticed before; something that I think would've remained lost on me if I had only continued reading in English. Some of these connections are incredibly valuable on t...

We believe that Christians should be : * Dim lights in the world, uneducated and not knowing much * Afraid of learning, scared of being challenged * Circular reasoners, ready to ignore other views * Closed-minded people, childish in faith * Stunted in spiritual growth, rejecting deep truths * Antagonistic toward studying, lazy and lackluster congregants * Slim on wisdom, ignorant in theological disposition * Unskilled arguers, incapable of coherent thoughts * Unprepared to give a defense, stupid in season and out of season * Haters of difficult matters, suckers of pop-theology's breasts * Advocates of cheap grace, seizers of anything surfacy and easy * Critics of exegesis, deniers of the command to love God with the whole mind * Pseudo-pietists, rejectors of academics * Pharisaic to the core, Philistine-like to the bone * Belligerent about the Bible, arrogant about Jesus * Sell-outs to culture, attention-whores * Offended easily, ready to crucify the learned * Politically charged, ...

I just got word that my submission to the annual Midwest SBL meeting has been accepted. There, I will be presenting in the Gospels section and I will be building upon my previous work "Was Mark Framed? : Killing the Messenger in Mark’s Tragedy," 5th Annual Western Fellowship of Professors and Scholars, Manhattan, KS, October 8-9, 2010. The paper for Midwest that I am offering is titled: "Behold, I Send My Messenger" : The Content and Contour of Mark’s Tragedy . In April, I will take another approach to this topic when I present at a conference in Cincinnati, a paper titled "A Fine Tale Beautifully Told": Unmasking the Tragic Elements of Mark's Story . Additionally, I will be presenting at least 3 (but probably 4) other research papers at various conferences this spring, which means that this semester, I will have reached my 25th paper presentation. Needless to say, I'm up to my head in research and writing these days!

I've been reading through Jay-Z's (Shawn Carter) recently released book titled Decoded , which I've quite enjoyed. Here's an excerpt from one of the sections of the book. While I do disagree with his conclusions, I think it is beneficial for many Christians, especially those who ignorantly and angrily bash him (see Youtube, here's an example of folks doing this on my page ), to see. They seriously need to chill out. Anyway, here's what he says: "My grandfather was a pastor—an Elder, they called them—in the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination. He had the same name as my father, Abnis Reid, so they called my father AJ, for Abnis Junior. My grandmother Ruby was a deaconess in the same church. My father came from a strict, religious household, but sanctified churches are rooted in African traditions, so music, especially drumming—even if it’s only drumming by clapping your hands together—played a big part of the service. Worship is never a qu...

In addition to the previous language sites I have designed, I decided today to go ahead and launch another one that is a work-in-progress. As the title of this post reveals, the site's name is " Getting Ethiopic ". Right now, I have included media on the site that will assist folks in learning the Amharic Fidel / Feedel. Given that the Fidel is so intimidating and overwhelming, I felt this the necessary first step. I have included readings, videos, songs, interactive modules and more, to assist those wanting to begin learning Ethiopic languages. While most of the materials currently on the site focus on Amharic (modern Ethiopic), these resources will also assist folks in learning Ge'ez (classical Ethiopic). Given that this is an incredibly busy season in life for me, I'm not sure how often within the next couple of months I will get to add data to the site, which is another reason I chose to go ahead and launch it (no need to have it just being dormant). H...

So, Daniel McClellan decided that after watching one of my recent YouTube videos , that it would be fun to caricature me, you know, like those guys do that you see sitting at amusement parks with their pencils and easels, they guys who make you look all crazy and distorted and mis-shaped. Well, here's his rendition of me, which makes my face look super huge and quite oblong but actually did make me lol. Watch yourself around him or you just might be next. :)

One of the goals I have for myself this year is to read all the way through the Greek New Testament. Certainly, I have read a lot of it in Greek and have also hopped around quite a bit. But, I have never made myself read straight through. So, I'm giving it a go. Initially, I planned to use January to do it. But with several projects going on, I don't want to overwhelm myself, so, I pushed it back to include January and February. This seems much more manageable. Here's my reading plan: NA27 Reading Schedule (Jan - Feb, 2011) [X] January 01, 2011 Matt 1–5 [X] January 02, 2011 Matt 6–9 [X] January 03, 2011 Matt 10–12 [X] January 04, 2011 Matt 13–15 [X] January 05, 2011 Matt 16–20 [X] January 06, 2011 Matt 21–23 [X] January 07, 2011 Matt 24–25 [X] January 08, 2011 Matt 26–28 [X] January 09, 2011 Mark 1–4 [X] January 10, 2011...