In today's world of megachurch entertainment complexes, many featured exegetes phone in their pulpit responsibility in favor of jumbotron concerts and orations that at best give only glancing reference to the Word of God.
Such is not the case with Pastor Dr. Ken Burge, Sr. who brings a balance of deep reflection to the Biblical narrative as actually presented as divine revelation within its original linguistic and socio-historical contexts as well as how it applies to the Christian living here in the contemporary world.
Rev. Burge delivers this same sense of pastoral care in “Paul's Letter To The Ephesians On F.I.R.E: Apprehending & Applying God's Timeless Truths”.
This volume is part of his ongoing life's opus of construing various books of the Bible through a systematized study summarized by the acronym F.I.R.E..
This methodology consists of Familiarity (a knowledge of the text derived from intimacy with God), Interpretation (based upon a trinitarian understanding focused on Christ), Relationship (treating the Bible with a respect that goes beyond a mere thing to appreciate the text as a source of authentic power), and Employment (the process where students takes these truths that they have learned and incorporate them to their own lives).
In terms of the books of the Bible, none is more suited to this approach than the epistle of Ephesians.
Directly addressing the struggles and concerns of the early believers of Ephesus, one of the primary cultural centers of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, Dr. Burge shows how these contextualized truths span the breadth of history to provide guidance to all believers irrespective of the era in which God has placed them.
A number of the perennial issues addressed include balanced domestic relations in the home, the reality of spiritual entities arrayed against the believer, and the role of servant leadership in the church.
Opening each chapter with an anecdote that draws the reader into the analysis, Dr. Burge's sermonic style provides homiletical seasoning to aide in the hermenutical digestion on the part of laymen perhaps reluctant to tackle the robust doctrinal meal provided by one of the New Testament's most prominent epistles.
By
Frederick Meekins