Christopher Ash explains how biblical scholarship can help ministers of the word handle challenging texts
Perhaps you’re writing a talk for a youth group. You diligently print out the passage, highlight the tricky parts, and reach for a commentary. An hour, and four commentaries later, you find you’ve tied yourself up in knots.
All the commentaries seem to say different things, and you’ve barely scratched the surface of some of the trickier issues. So how do we use scholarship well? How can we let it shape how we read the Bible, without getting overwhelmed?
Christopher Ash: how can we age well?
I am in my (very) early seventies. I have just written a book about following Jesus in your fifties and …