Dr. David Stubbs is Professor of Ethics & Theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He is Co-Director of the Hope-Western Prison Education Program. His newest book, Table and Temple: The Christian Eucharist and its Jewish Roots, is available for pre-order on Amazon.
Numbers paints an ideal picture of the high calling of the people of God, and then realistically shows all the typical ways God’s people fall short of that vision as they wander in the wilderness. While this book of scripture suffers from a bad title, Numbers contains a treasury of stories and passages that can help us all reflect on how Christians might best travel through the “wilderness” we find ourselves in today.
From the Preface: “Israel’s forty-year sojourn in the wilderness, much of which is recorded in Numbers, was a time of revelation and care by God, a time of testing, and a time of judgement and blessing. Just as Jacob/Israel wrestled with God (Gen. 32:24) after crossing the ford of the Jabbok River, so too Israel wrestled with God during those forty years after crossing the Red Sea. They too came away limping but blessed.”
This commentary, like each in the Brazos series, is designed to serve the church - as an aid to preaching, teaching, study groups, and so forth - and to demonstrate the continuing intellectual and practical viability of theological interpretation of the Bible.
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Available on Amazon
"In Numbers Stubbs shows us what theological interpretation of scripture should be: deeply attentive to the biblical text whilst at the same time drawing from the church's rich theological heritage. With the church of our day so divided and confused, we have never more needed to hear God's word from the book of Numbers, this most ecclesiological of books."
- Nathan MacDonald, University of St. Andrews, Scotland
"David Stubbs is an able guide as he focuses on the literary shaper of the final form of Numbers and its theological implications for the life of the Christian Church. ... Stubbs manages to offer up a sumptuous theological feast out of what is sometimes seen as the dry fare of the book of Numbers."
- Dennis Olson, Princeton Theological Seminary
"Stubbs' sophisticated literary approach is just what is needed to engage the interplay of law and narrative in this, the most complex book of the Torah. Moreover, his wide-ranging theological and ecclesial imagination is deeply informed by scripture and the history of its interpretation by both Jews and Christians. Stubbs has opened up the riches of a book that was effectively closed to the church, making it accessible and even indispensable for our journey with God."
- Ellen Davis, Duke Divinity School