About

My name is Jonathan Caldwell. I work and worship with the Russellville church of Christ in Russellville, AL. I am married to the greatest person on earth – Tiffany. We have a three year old son (James Grant) who has to drink a Monster Energy drink before we wake up in the morning and we have a little princess (Lillian Gail) who was born December 29th last year. I finished my MBA with the University of Phoenix last year and I hope to begin a Master’s in Biblical Studies this fall. Between my role as husband and father, my work as an evangelist, and various other interests, I stay pretty busy.

I am a huge Indianapolis Colts fan and Atlanta Braves fan! I like all kinds of music. I love movies but don’t have the time to watch them. And I love to read!

Why do I have a blog? One of my teachers at Florida College always told us to write things down. He emphasized the need to take notes and write down what you were thinking, learning, and reading. He said that this forced you to “crystalize” your thoughts. Therefore, this blog is for me. It is a place I can think out loud and get some feedback.

I have a daily Bible reading schedule, so many of the posts will come from that. I am in the process of relearning all of the Greek I have forgotten and/or never learned, so a few posts may come from that. And I love to read so many posts will involve my interaction with books (reviews and critiques).

And finally, I have always had trouble with the technical language involved in academic Biblical Studies. When you read N. T. Wright, Fee, Carson, or Longman, they often throw out words that have a very specific meaning. These words may seem extravigant, but they express the idea of the author most clearly (without the word the author would have to add a full paragraph just to explain what he or she is talking about. The problem is that I don’t know a lot of these words. Enter the Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, Donald K. McKim. Sometimes I will write a brief post on a specific term that I came across in my readings, because I don’t know what it means or what all it encompasses.

Above all, I will keep it all in the context! I can make the Bible say whatever I want it to say when I ignore context. Context not only involves the surrounding verses (Dee Bowman’s three before and three after rule), but it involves the entire book, the entire Bible, the setting of the author, and the culture of the audience. The same teacher who told me to write things down, told every student he came across, “Context is key!”