Blizzard in Oklahoma - Time to get off subject

We had a Blizzard in Oklahoma City - with the requisite need to cancel classes.

My office has been quiet and relatively warm with my space heater - and I've been doing work.

Teaching on Leviticus and Numbers for Nazarene Theological Seminary this spring - so have been doing class preparation and other reading, engagement in a host of texts - more on Numbers - this past weekend and week.  I've been piddling through Numbers commentary texts for months now - just not "reading them" in the same way I read other books that I post here.

Additionally, I will be with colleagues and old friends - and hopefully with new friends, in Idaho for the Wesley Center Conference - The Bible Tells Me So - in a few short days.  So, today I took sometime to actually write down some thoughts on Scripture, Authority, Inspiration and the like.  I had time to review a couple of books that helped me think through my own words/ideas.  The books I reviewed were excellent for starting the dialogue for me, before the conference dialogue begins.  The texts were Inspiration and Incarnation:  Evangelicals and the Problem of the Bible by Peter Enns and Engaging Biblical Authority:  Perspectives on the Bible as Scripture, edited by William P. Brown. 

But, my really off the subject issue is not so much off subject of my life's work (I hope!) - as much as it is just not central to what I should be doing!  I picked up The Politics of Jesus:  Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus' Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted by Obery Hendricks because I was looking up a single reference to a Markan textual issue for a sermon I plan to preach in February.  Well, confounded.  The book was too good to put down - so I read the whole thing today.  Thankfully, since it was a library text, I actually was able to read the whole thing.  Had it been "my text" I would not have made it through it in a day as I would have been filling the margins with notes.  But, since it was a library text, I just kept flipping the pages.  Great stuff in this text.  I'll likely have to purchase and re-read - but that will have to be for another day as this blizzard in Oklahoma has given me time to get off the subject(s) of where I should be working.  And now, it's time to get back to my unfinished projects which seem to be multiplying.

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Side note.  I talked to an old friend tonight.  A friend from my university days in San Diego - 18 years ago.  She and I hadn't spoken (though we've interacted on Facebook recently) in at least 15 years.  What a delight, delight, delight to share friendship with great people - even if we only speak 1x in every 15 years!  I am blessed with great friends from a host of places through past university, church, and life engagement.  I am so very thankful this evening.  Delightful.  Just delightful.