I’ll confess I was a little surprised at how much more exegetical than theological this week’s reading turned out to be—perhaps particularly because I’ve recently read Jim’s remarkable essay “Breathing,” which deals with Romans 7-8 (but especially 8) in a profoundly philosophical way. (It can be found in Faith, Philosophy, Scripture, for those interested in taking a look.) There’s much to learn from Jim’s more exegetical notes, of course, so let me see what I can develop from his discussion. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve already introduced what I’m doing in this series in a first post, so I won’t review that here. I took up Helaman 7 before; I’ll take up Helaman 8 now. Read the rest of this entry »

For a project I’m hard at work on, I’m reading carefully through Helaman 7-16, chapter by chapter. In order to organize my thoughts as I’m working along through the text, I’m thinking I’ll write up posts on each chapter. These notes will simply be here, ready for anyone who cares to read through them. Read the rest of this entry »

Jim’s commentary on Romans 1 has made clear again and again that we’d be dealing with the life of holiness in Romans 5-8. For that reason, I’m now reading with a careful eye to what it means to live in a holy way. I’ll pick up a few scattered remarks in the commentary on 5:3-11 that are instructive in a variety of ways, but I think it’d be best if I begin with and spend the bulk of my own time here on one passage in particular—the one from which I learned the most about what it might mean to speak of the life of holiness. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s the discussion of the phrase “his life” from verse 10, found on pages 234-235. I’ll begin there, and then I’ll make a few comments on other points in this week’s reading. Read the rest of this entry »

My comments so far in the course of this reading project have aimed at isolating passages in which Jim’s overarching intentions with the letter to the Romans are embodied. In a certain way, this is to cut against the grain of Jim’s text: although he does, I think, have certain overarching intentions, his approach to the text is purposefully in excess of any overarching intention—too comprehensive to be limited to a theme, too willing to go wherever Paul wanders to dwell for long on central themes, too methodologically focused to worry about outlining an argument. Perhaps I’ve been willing—and will continue to be willing—to work against some of Jim’s purposes because I was converted long, long ago to the approach he’s modeling in the book; hoping to learn more from Jim, I consequently find myself focusing on the subtly emergent theme that gives the whole book its title. Whatever my motivations, I’ll continue in that mold in my discussion here of Jim’s analysis of Romans 1:18-23. How do these pages contribute to Jim’s investigation of the life of holiness? Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post, I took a close look just at the word “opposition.” Here I want to look just at the phrase “all things.” I’ll be doing one more narrow post like this on the first line, on, specifically, “it must needs be.” Then I’ll follow this brief miniseries up with a study of the first sentence of 2 Nephi 2:11.

So the task: What should be said about the meaning of “all things”? Read the rest of this entry »