Category Archives: Personal transformation

Reflections on the Ending of a Sabbatical—and on the Year Ahead

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I’ve been on sabbatical from Northeastern Seminary throughout the Fall semester of 2016. It’s been a well-needed break from teaching, so I could work on a research and writing project I’ve wanted to dig into for a while.

My teaching for the Spring 2016 semester ended in early May. That meant I was able to get started on my planned research at the start of summer 2016.

With the sabbatical now over, I’m getting into gear to begin teaching again this week. I’ve just realized that it will be my twenty-second year of full-time teaching (I started at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in January 1996, having done quite a bit of adjunct teaching in the previous eight years).

It is also coming up on my third anniversary of blogging (my first post was February 15, 2014).

Plus, yesterday was my birthday.

So this seems like be a good time to reflect:

  • on my sabbatical
  • on blogging
  • on getting older.

It turns out these three are all connected.

My Sabbatical

The first thing to say is that there wasn’t much “Sabbath” (that is, rest) in my sabbatical; I worked very hard almost the entire time (I only took a break leading up to Christmas). But then a sabbatical these days is meant to be for academic work (usually for research and writing). Indeed, I had to put in a proposal over a year in advance to justify my sabbatical (which comes after, not in, the seventh year).

This was only my third ever sabbatical.

My first came while I was teaching at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (they gave a full-year sabbatical every seven years or a semester sabbatical every three and a half years; I chose the latter). I used that sabbatical to work on my doctoral dissertation, though I took time in the summer before the sabbatical proper to be reinvigorated mentally and physically (I did a lot of bike riding in the country).

Since I left Colgate Rochester for Roberts Wesleyan College a year before I would have been eligible for my next sabbatical, I lost out on the time I had already put in. I had to teach for seven more years at Roberts before I became eligible for another sabbatical (so there was a ten year gap between the first and the second).

After waiting so long, I decided to make the most of my second sabbatical (Spring 2009). I committed myself in advance to writing and presenting a number of papers, teaching a three-week intensive course in Old Testament theology at the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology (in Jamaica), continuing to supervise a seminary student for his internship (even into my sabbatical), while trying to work on my eschatology book, A New Heaven and a New Earth (I had signed the contract two years before).

I realized afterwards that I had over-extended myself for the short time I had available. I did get a lot of work done on multiple projects, but I had only begun the eschatology book by the time the sabbatical was over.

So as my third sabbatical drew near I decided to focus my efforts squarely on one research and writing project, a new book called The Silence of Abraham, the Passion of Job: Explorations in the Theology of Lament (for Baker Academic).

To that end during the summer I wrote one new paper and revised two papers I had previously written, with a view to these becoming the core of the three main parts of the book—on lament, on Abraham, and on Job.

I presented all three papers, one in Canada at the start of the summer, and two in Australia during the Fall. I received good feedback on all three and in the last month I revised them all for publication; two will be published in journals (Canadian-American Theological Review and St. Mark’s Review), one in a collection of essays (Lament Rekindled, possibly published by Continuum).

The papers are:

  • “God’s Loyal Opposition: Psalmic and Prophetic Protest as a Mode of Faithfulness in the Hebrew Bible.”
  • “Unbinding the Aqedah from the Straightjacket of Tradition: An Inner-Biblical Interpretation of Abraham’s Test in Genesis 22.”
  • “Does God Come to Bury Job or to Praise Him? The Function of YHWH’s Second Speech from the Whirlwind.”

So my sabbatical was successful in terms of my completing these pieces of my larger book project. And I have a pretty clear sense of what I need to do for the remaining chapters.

My Time in Australia

Since two of these papers were presented in Australia, with feedback from other biblical scholars, I’m grateful for the invitation to go Down Under for a month.

How it came about was that in March 2016 I received  an invitation to come to Australia for 4-6 weeks in the Fall as a visiting theologian; this would involve me presenting on my current research and it was to also give me time to dialogue with others about the material I was working on and to do further research.

Normally, I would have had to decline an offer like this because of teaching commitments, but the upcoming sabbatical enabled me to accept. I went for four weeks and had a wonderful time, first at St. Barnabas College in Adelaide, then at St. Mark’s National Theological Centre in Canberra.

However, the trip exhausted me. First, there was the actual travel (a 36 hour trip each way).

Then, I didn’t get much time to catch up on sleep while I was there. And I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older, I need more (not less) sleep to function well.

I was originally scheduled to give six presentations in Australia, three at each theological school (St. Barnabas and St. Mark’s). But then I agreed to add just one more item (and then just one more, etc.), until I ended up giving a total of eleven presentations of various sorts (from the papers I had prepared over the summer, to a two-hour radio interview the day after I arrived, preaching in two church services, giving public lectures, speaking to theological students in various settings, and writing two response papers to other scholars’ presentations).

And this doesn’t count the one-on-one meetings I had or the group social events I attended (and I enjoyed all of this). Yet as an introvert I found myself perpetually tired and often running on adrenaline.

The upshot is that I worked very hard while I was in Australia. It was definitely a worthwhile experience and I got to know some amazing people (both inside and outside of academic settings). And I got to see some of the local fauna (kangaroos and such). But I didn’t get any significant research on my book done while I was Down Under.

And I came home sleep deprived.

I had to rest up for almost a week just to get the energy for my next assignments—three public lectures I was scheduled to give on the topic of my new book at a university in Canada and two academic papers at the Society of Biblical Literature (both of which involved traveling and being away from home for days at a time).

Lessons Learned

What I learned from the Australia segment of my sabbatical was that I too easily take on more than I should realistically accept, given the limitations of my time and energy.

But this was certainly not a problem limited to my time in Australia.

Before I went to Australia I had committed to writing two book reviews for a journal and a number of blog posts for BioLogos (all things I really wanted to do, and all due by the end of the year).

But then just before I left for Australia I received notification from a number of editors I had been working with that final edits on various of my essays were due ASAP in order to meet publication deadlines.

Needless to say, very little of this got done while I was in Australia, or even after I returned, even though I worked on editing and writing in most of my free time from September through mid-December (at which time I took a needed break, to prepare for Christmas).

The Past Year of Blogging

This brings us to blogging.

Since the beginning of 2016 (and for most of the year before that too), my schedule of teaching, combined with talks and writing and presenting papers, meant that I had little time to write very many blog posts for this website.

A sign of this is that I have published part 1 of some blog posts (like on my week of Jewish learning or my Australia trip), but have not yet got to part 2.

I have actually begun drafts of these continuation posts (and many others that I’ve wanted to write), but I simply lacked the time to bring them to completion (as I’ve blogged about before, I find I need to take time to write and edit anything well, including blog posts).

When I began blogging almost three years go, my idea was to publish one blog post per week; but I have often been lucky to get one post out per month of late.

I simply came up against my own limitations of time and energy. There is always limited time available to anyone; but in addition I’ve found that I need to manage my energy better as I grow older.

Another Birthday

That leads to the topic of my birthday; I turned 62 yesterday.

The paradox is that due to regular exercise (walking swimming, weights), I feel better than I did ten or even twenty years ago. Some of my commitment to exercise is due to a couple of injuries I sustained a few years back; I’ve come to realize that without this exercise I wouldn’t be able to function at the level I currently do.

Nevertheless, I need to be realistic about my limitations.

Sure, it feels great to be asked to edit papers I’ve given orally for publication or to write an essay from scratch for an anthology, or to be invited to give talks at churches, colleges, retreats, and conferences. And many of these projects address real needs.

As I face a new year, however, I’ve come to re-affirm the truth (which I already knew) that it is better to focus on what I know I am called to do than to scatter my energies on multiple projects that others want me to do, especially when there is limited time available.

I thought I had learned this lesson a while back.

I had already come to a similar conclusion over six years ago (in 2010), and had begun to divest myself of many commitments that I had agreed to only in order to please the person asking. I have also, since then, learned to say “No” much more often than I used to.

But I clearly need to do this better.

To that end, I recently (in the past few weeks) turned down new speaking engagements and I even pulled out of some writing assignments that I had previously committed myself to. It became clear to me that I couldn’t complete everything presently on my plate (at least, not well), given the start of the new semester.

A New Year’s Resolution?

As the new year begins I want to devote my energy to my teaching and mentoring of students and to complete the various oral and writing assignments that I’ve intentionally taken on for 2017.

If I focus just on these, I might even be able to get back to posting regularly on this website.

I’ve got drafts started on the conclusion to my posts about Jewish learning and Australia (I’ll probably do these first); then there are partially written posts on the topics of prayer, worship, suffering, evolution, Jamaican independence, and my six degrees of separation from Malcolm Gladwell (that one’s been sitting there for almost a year!).

As I start my sixty-third year, I am grateful to God for all good gifts. I would say a hearty Amen! to the post about gratitude I wrote on my birthday two years ago.

Although I don’t (usually) make new year’s resolutions, perhaps one is in order as we face 2017.

I’ll take my cue from the last Calvin and Hobbes cartoon ever to appear (which was published on December 31, 1995), the week before I began my first full-time teaching job). I hung a framed copy in my office when I started teaching in January 1996.

Calvin and his pet tiger are at the top of a snow-covered hill, in their toboggan. Looking down on the scene below, Calvin says: “it’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy.” Then he adds: “let’s go exploring!”

The new year lies before us.

I hope you will join me.

Image result for calvin and hobbes let's go sledding

Three Recent Theses Completed at Northeastern Seminary

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Three Master’s theses that I supervised were recently completed, two last year and one this summer. They are all substantial pieces of theological research, with clear implications for the life of the church.

  • Living Sacramentally: The Problem of Being and Doing with Special Reference to Thomas Aquinas (Margaret Giordano)
  • The New Creation Fugue: The Interweaving of Individual, Community, and Cosmos in Paul’s Theology of New Creation (Calvin Smith)
  • Two Pauline Ways to Describe the Ethics of the Resurrection Life (Matthew Davis)

Although my area of expertise is Old Testament, none of these theses were in that area. Meg Giordano’s thesis was in philosophy, while Calvin Smith’s and Matt Davis’s were in New Testament. So for the Giordano thesis I had to draw on my own M.A. in philosophy (my thesis addressed God language in Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillich), and for the Smith and Davis theses, I could draw on my research for my recent book on eschatology, A New Heaven and a New Earth.

Meg Giordano’s thesis addresses the contemporary problem, particularly evident in Protestant churches in the evangelical tradition, of downplaying “works” (actions, good deeds) by emphasizing “faith” (this is often tied to the claim that “being” is more important than “doing”). Not only is this is a totally bogus distinction (we can’t simply “be” without “doing” anything; and faith without works is dead [James 2:14-26]), but she shows that the writings of Thomas Aquinas are helpful for exploring how action may be thought of as the core of being. Although there are tensions in Aquinas’s formulation (which Giordano explores), Aquinas drew on Aristotle, whose primary category of being was “energeia” or activity, a signal improvement over Plato’s more passive concept of Being (many Christian theologians have been more influenced by Plato).

Through this study, Giordanto aims to “reclaim the value of action in the life of the individual and in the relationships of community,” in such a manner that our action can be thought of as sacramental—living so that our ordinary lives “can be centers that activate in others grace, peace, and even connectedness to the presence of Christ, and to lay down our lives to ensure that they be so.”

Despite its clear philosophical character, this thesis resonated with me as a biblical scholar, since it is clear from both the Old and New Testaments that the goal of salvation is sanctification or transformation, which is manifested in a concrete life of discipleship and obedience to God.

Calvin Smith’s thesis addresses the interpretive question—which continues to surface in New Testament scholarship—of whether Paul’s references to “new creation” (Galatians 6:15; 2 Corinthians 5:17) speak primarily to the transformation of the individual or the community (the way the debate is often set up) or even to the entire cosmos (which is the primary reference of “new creation” in Second Temple Judaism).

His profound argument is that there is an interweaving of all three in Paul’s writings, and it is impossible to understand any of these emphases without the others.

As Smith aptly puts it: “There are two basic relationships to attend to: new creatures [individuals] making up the new community; and the new community as the signpost for the new cosmos. Altogether it is a cumulative relationship with the new community as the central link.” Smith likens the interweaving of these three motifs to a musical fugue. He writes: “This thesis is, in a way, an attempt to learn this fugue by separating the three parts and practicing each part before putting them all back together.”

Matt Davis’s thesis addresses the typical disjunction, both in contemporary theology and in the life of the church, between eschatology and ethics, with a focus on the resurrection. To overcome this disjunction, Davis focuses on two Pauline ways of speaking of resurrection life, signaled by Paul’s two-fold use of investiture language.

The first use of the investiture metaphor is Paul’s language of the resurrection as putting on a new body, in 1 Corinthians 15 and in 2 Corinthians 4–5, while the second is the more explicitly ethical language of putting on the new humanity, along with its practices, found in Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3. As Davis explains: “The eschatological foundation in 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 4–5 sets up Eph 4 and Col 3 as texts of profound ethical practices to follow. Paul stressed the community life and tied it to the transformation because of the Christ event.”

Davis wants to follow up by applying his research to the local church. He explains: “My plan is to create a church discipleship program from this labor of love, something that will help the church to practically and actively live out the resurrection life in the world.”

What They Are Doing Now

Meg Giordano has been adjunct professor of philosophy at Le Moyne College, Syracuse, NY for the past year; she has just begun a PhD in philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto.

Calvin Smith has been a pastor at Valley Chapel Free Methodist Church. Perry, NY for the past two years; he is currently exploring doctoral programs in New Testament and theology.

Matt Davis has been working in the Golisano Library at Roberts Wesleyan College for the last number of years, while also serving as adjunct professor in the religion department of the College. He has just begun a PhD in ministry studies at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, ON.

I’ve written before about Northeastern Seminary, where I teach, and what a special place I have found it to be.

My Intensive Week of Jewish Learning at the Hadar Institute

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Original post updated April 19, 2025

I am Jewish by birth (through my mother), although I was not raised in the Jewish tradition.

I became a Christian at a fairly young age and began attending church seriously as a teenager. I was particularly drawn to the study of the Bible and—despite my interest in visual art and poetry in high school—I embarked on an undergraduate degree in theology, primarily in order to explore my faith.

Along the way I fell in love with academics, and by the time I received my undergraduate degree (B.Th.) I had experienced a clear call to a teaching career. For me, however, I was only interested in teaching if academics could be integrally connected to the life of faith and the real needs of church and society. Indeed, I have never experienced academics as an ivory tower exercise.

I went on to study philosophy (M.A.), followed by graduate courses in biblical studies, and then a Ph.D. that integrated all of the above (a doctorate in philosophical theology, with a dissertation in Old Testament/Hebrew Bible).

My Jewish Heritage and Love for the Old Testament

I am unabashedly a Christian. Yet I can’t deny my Jewish heritage, a heritage that perhaps led to my love of the Old Testament—what Jews call Tanakh (an acronym for Torah [Pentateuch], Nevi’im [Prophets], and Ketuvim [Writings]).

I have always resisted jumping too quickly from the Old Testament to the New, since I have found that the Old Testament is a profound document in its own right, which has been formative for my spirituality. Rather than reading the Old Testament resolutely in terms of the New (finding Jesus under ever rock and tree—as one of my students put it), I have tried to read the New Testament in terms of the Old.

This way of reading the Bible undergirds all my teaching and led to (among other things) my recent book on biblical eschatology, A New Heaven and a New Earth, in which I tried to demonstrate the consistently this-worldly, earthy vision of “the age to come” (ha’olam haba in Hebrew). The eschatological vision of the New Testament builds on the foundation of the Old Testament, and does not—contrary to many Christian misreadings—“spiritualize” this foundation.

While I have no actual intention of converting to Judaism, I am interested in understanding my Jewish heritage—especially the ways in which Judaism has developed beyond the Bible.

And I have the utmost respect for Jews who take their faith seriously and seek to live out their commitment to God with integrity and compassion.

The Hadar Institute

I met a good number of such people this past week, as I immersed myself in the five-day Executive Seminar of an ecumenical institute of Jewish learning in New York City called Mechon Hadar.

Mechon Hadar (now called the Hadar Institute) was founded in 2006 by three brilliant young Rabbis—Shai Held, Elie Kaunfer, and Ethan Tucker, who continue to lead the institute, along with the addition of other top-notch faculty.

According to their website: “The Hadar Institute is a center of Jewish life, learning, and practice that builds vibrant egalitarian communities in North America and Israel. Our vision for Jewish life is rooted in rigorous and nuanced Torah study, gender equality, meaningful Jewish practice, and the values of kindness and compassion.”

Or, as it was articulated more simply during the Seminar, the Institute seeks to be characterized by “sophisticated yet accessible Jewish learning.” I found that to be an accurate description of my experience with this amazing, innovative study center.

Rabbi Ethan Tucker teaching in the Beit Midrash (House of Study)

Hadar offers a variety of programs, ranging from one-day seminars to summer intensives and year-long fellowships. While many of their programs cater to young people (especially those in college) who want an advanced course of Jewish studies (some even come from Israel for this), and other programs function as continuing education for Rabbis, the Executive Seminar that I participated in is geared to laypeople of varying levels of comfort and expertise with the Hebrew language and with Jewish texts and traditions.

Although I was the only Christian in the group of nearly forty adults attending this summer’s Executive Seminar, I was warmly welcomed and made to feel at home. Over the five days of intensive learning, I had many wonderful conversations with participants and even—by the end—found myself making a contribution to discussions.

Talmud Study—Clarification of Terminology

Three of the mornings were spent in intensive study of the Talmud (three hours each morning), where our focus was on the ramifications of a law concerning liability for injury in Exodus 21:18-19 and the divine and human roles in healing implied in God’s promises to Israel in Exodus 15:26.

For Christians unfamiliar with Jewish terminology, the Talmud (also called the Gemara) is a collection of Rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah, which is itself earlier Rabbinic commentary on the halakah, that is, the laws of the Torah (hālak means to walk, from which we get the phrase “walk the walk,” which refers to ethical action).

Since many of the commands enjoined upon Israel in the Torah raised questions in the minds of later readers, they discussed what these laws meant and how they might be applied, often suggesting difficult hypothetical cases or even counter examples to try and clarify the point of the laws.

This Rabbinic commentary was collected by Rabbi Yehuda (Judah) and published around 200 C.E. (= “Common Era,” equivalent to A.D. for Christians) as the Mishnah.

But the discussions of the various laws in the Mishnah in turn raised further questions, which led to debate and clarification by later Rabbis. The collection of this later commentary (from about 200 to 500 C.E.) on the Mishnah is sometimes called the Gemara, but more usually the Talmud (meaning “teaching,” from the verb lāmad, to learn).

The confusion is that there is a second, more expansive meaning of Talmud, which can refer to the combination of Mishnah and Gemara. There are two extant versions of the Talmud in this larger sense—the Palestinian or Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi) and the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli). The latter is more comprehensive and is the version usually studied.

My Knowledge of Hebrew

Since we were studying the train of interpretation concerning Exodus 21:18-19 and 25:26 in the Mishnah (and related contemporaneous literature called the Baraita) and in the Talmud (Gemara), with some excursions into later medieval and modern Jewish texts, we were put into groups based on our facility with Hebrew and Aramaic. Some Seminar participants were in a group that studied the relevant texts in English, while others were paired with advanced students who were at Hadar for the summer intensive (they studied texts in the primary language, usually Aramaic, and usually unpointed—that is, without vowels). I would have been out of my depth in this latter group.

I began the study of Biblical Hebrew in my thirties, unlike many of the Seminar participants who had been to Hebrew school as children and had participated in the Jewish liturgy (reciting the Siddur) for many years. Some had even been involved in advanced Hebrew learning, and a few were fluent in Modern Hebrew.

So, while I have taught introductory (and even intermediate) Hebrew in college and seminary up to five years ago (so I knew the grammar, and much biblical vocabulary), I never functioned in a context where Hebrew was spoken, and was unfamiliar with many Hebrew terms that named parts of the Jewish liturgy. I felt the force of Mr. Miyagi’s words to Daniel in The Karate Kid, when he sees Daniel reading. “You learn karate from book?” he asks incredulously. Change karate to Hebrew and you will understand my disadvantage.

So I was happy to be part of a group (made up of about half the Seminar participants) whose level of expertise required us to participate in Talmud study with a bilingual text (English and Hebrew/Aramaic).

Each morning this group was expertly introduced to the issues to be studied by Rabbi Alvan Kaunfer (father of Elie, one of the founding Rabbis). Then we broke up into pairs or small groups of three or four (I was paired with a wonderful man named Michael—one of three Michaels in the Seminar) and we would spend an hour and a half digging into the texts for the day, trying to figure out the arguments and the concerns of the various Rabbinic voices. Then we would re-gather with Rabbi Kaunfer to discuss what we had found and he would help us synthesize the learning for the morning.

With Michael, my Havruta (study parntner)

Studying Talmud was a new experience for me and initially I found it quite complex and even confusing; but by the end I had come to a profound respect for the wisdom and insight of these ancient interpreters of Scripture.

Besides Talmud study, I attended various afternoon talks and seminars given by the Hadar faculty and guest speakers on important topics of Jewish theology, ethics, biblical interpretation, and liturgy (all of which were interspersed with references to Hebrew terms and texts). I found my facility with the language growing every day.

Making New Friends

I also had wonderful fellowship with a variety of attendees, whom I got to know to varying degrees. One attendee (a first-timer, like myself) was Geoffrey Stein, a Jewish businessman who had studied the New Testament as an undergraduate. I learned that Geoffrey had earlier (2014) written a blog post on the Jewish blessing for “doing one’s business.” This post by a Jewish layperson is permeated by deep knowledge of Jewish tradition (if only Christian laypeople would know as much about their tradition!); it also wonderfully embodies the biblical affirmation of our created physicality (again, if only Christians would understand this about our biblical heritage, which is often better appreciated by our Jewish brothers and sisters!).

I had been planning to write a follow-up post about my week at Hadar, but never got around to doing it. However, Geoffrey Stein wrote an informative blog about his experience, which included a section on meeting me (in which he called me “truly a Messianic Jew”). 

Posing with Geoffrey Stein

The pictures in his blog post of the Beit Midrash and the rooftop BBQ dinner were taken with my camera, as are the pictures of us together sporting our kippahs (though, of course, I didn’t take those personally).

Further Connections with Shai Held

I met Shai Held for the first time in person at the Hadar intensive week in 2016 and I attended again in 2017; since then, our connections have only deepened. Some years later, I was able to arrange a panel discussion at the 2019 Society of Biblical Literature on Shai’s The Heart of Torah, his two-volume collection of reflections on the Jewish lectionary selections from the Pentateuch. The papers from the panel discussion (by Jewish and Christian scholars) were published the following year in the Canadian-American Theological Review. I blogged about the panel and the published papers here.

Later, when Shai published his magnum opus, Judaism Is about Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life (2024), I joined a group of Christian biblical scholars, theologians, and ethicists in New York City for two days of feedback and discussion. It was a rich time of fellowship and congeniality.

The latest news is that Shai Held will come to Northeastern Seminary (Rochester, NY) on November 12, 2025 to give a public lecture on his book Judaism Is about Love. I have been asked to give a Christian response to his lecture (and book), followed by open Q&A. The lecture will be in person and streamed at the same time. Stay tuned about specifics.