Wise Words from a Wise Scholar

Last updated on: November 12, 2025 at 1:48 am by Ben Witherington

Wise Words from a Wise Scholar 2025-11-01T10:12:52-04:00 Ben Witherington

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There are many things I am thankful for, and one of them is for having John Oswalt as a colleague and fellow faculty member here at Asbury. Of course many know him for his fine commentary on Isaiah, and I have had the privilege of hearing him preach to very good effect on several occasions. But what I did not know until recently is that he wrote a very good summary kind of commentary on Exodus in the original Asbury Bible Commentary which was published in 1992.

But that was now long ago, and Zondervan in their wisdom and in their partnership with Asbury’s Seedbed publishing enterprise has decided to redo that commentary in the form of me revising and re-editing the whole thing (2,000 plus pages)– yikes! Pray for me as it’s a big big job. It has occurred to me that God has been preparing me for this for a long time as I’m one of the few folks in my tradition that has taught both the OT and NT at least at a seminary level (11 years of teaching the OT and NT at Ashland Seminary). I had to laugh when I was interviewed by David Bauer in 1995 for the job at Asbury and he asked the question “which part of the NT would you expect to teach?” to which I laughed replied “yes” as I had been teaching the whole Bible, as well as Wesley studies and even apologetics for many years. At least, I was hoping, let me teach the whole NT.

And I guess I’m also one of the few in my tradition that have written both a commentary on all the NT books and also books involving both the OT and NT, most recently the three I did for Fortress entitled Torah Old and New, Psalms Old and New, and Isaiah Old and New, studying the OT texts in their original contexts, but also especially how they are used in the NT. It is fascinating to discover that the portions of the OT most used in the NT are Isaiah, and in particular material from what is called second Isaiah–40ff., and then some particular Psalms (e.g. Ps.22, 110.1-4), and then some particular texts from the Pentateuch– obviously Gen. 1-3, Gen. 15 and more broadly the story of Abraham (cf. Heb. 11), some Moses stories (cf. 2 Cor. 3-4), and especially Deuteronomy including the Shema. And there are also huge swaths of the OT that get no quotes, no allusions, no echoes, surprisingly, even some of Isaiah before chapter 40. In any case, all of that I suppose has been used by the Lord to prepare me for this gargantuan task of revising and editing that big Bible commentary. Well I am just getting going on that, and have been really enjoying reading John Oswalt’s Exodus, which includes the quote of the day—

“God’s larger purpose in the Exodus is explained here (6:6–8). Political freedom is not an end, but a means whereby the people might know God and enter into a living relation with him. Likewise, deliverance from guilt and condemnation is also a means to those same ends. To know God (v.7) is to learn his character by intimate personal experience.”

Amen to that. Ask yourself this question– what has our current self-created political and spiritual mess in America been teaching us about God, and about drawing closer to God and knowing him more intimately? Some might say nothing— but if so, you have not been listening or learning the sort of lessons God teaches in times of trouble when you have bad, corrupt or just self-centered,inept and immoral leaders both in the country and sadly even in some parts of in the church. Enough said.

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