Tag Archives: hermeneutics

Understanding as the Telos of Mission

Posted on June 2, 2023 by Mark Love

Let me begin by clarifying what I mean by the word “telos.” It’s a Greek word that is sometimes used to stand in for “goal.” But it can mean other things as well, like fulfillment or completion or end, and … Continue reading →

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Love, Understanding, and Participation in the Life of God

Posted on May 23, 2023 by Mark Love

Just thinking out loud here, and trying to reverse engineer the bigger project I’ve been working on. So, you are generous to audit my raw notions. The author of 1 John insists that the deal is not that we love … Continue reading →

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The gospels, the practice of theology, and the tasks of ministry

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Mark Love

If you will allow me an overly general observation, there are fundamentally two kinds of theology with two corresponding ways of thinking about ministry. One is a theology from above which moves from revelation to experience, context being secondary and … Continue reading →

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The Cover, Johnny Cash/Depeche Mode, and Meaning

Posted on May 11, 2019 by Mark Love

In my last post, which featured the Led Zeppelin cover, In My Time of Dying, I used the “cover” as an analogy for how biblical materials get used anew in different contexts within Scripture itself. The point I tried to … Continue reading →

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Startled unto Salvation

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Mark Love

I’ve been thinking a lot about gospel and salvation these days, and some things are falling together in ways that they haven’t before. Let me begin with the idea that the gospel is “news.” Shocking, I know. But we tend … Continue reading →

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15:28 compliant: spaces for the storytellers

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Mark Love

Let me remind you what I’m doing here in my recent blog posts. I’m taking Acts 15:28 as a decisive clue for Luke’s understanding of the church. That is, the phrase, “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to … Continue reading →

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Why I’m a Charismatic: and you should be too

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Mark Love

At my recent dissertation defense, my primary advisor made some observations at points that called into question my theological commitments. He wondered if I might be a legalist, a Barthian (I’m not sure which is worse to him), and on … Continue reading →

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On the way to an alternative proposal, a review of Spufford’s “Unapologetic”

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Mark Love

Because my last few years have been spent reading the same books over and over as I try to finish a dissertation, I often have to give a sheepish “no” to the question of whether or not I have read … Continue reading →

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Dylan on a Friday: The Musicares Speech and Preaching

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Mark Love

As readers of my former blog know, I used to write a weekly piece entitled, “Dylan on a Sunday” where I would riff on some lyric or theme or related theological topic in the Dylan world. I’ve written a few … Continue reading →

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Competency one: developing a shared biblical imagination for mission

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Mark Love

Communities of faith participating in the life of God in a new missional era have the capacity to develop a shared biblical imagination. The really big word in this sentence is “shared.”My sense is that there are few biblical texts … Continue reading →

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