Dan Davenport's Blog (17)

This came out of a chat with some Friends at the Meeting I attend.  They were encouraging me in the Bible reading I was doing and I mentioned that I had been reading Acts chapter 10 and that it was a favorite of mine.  I also mentioned that it was one Biblical account Early Friends used for rejecting water baptism.  Some of them went and read the passage and one asked me how it could be interpreted as a case against outward baptism.  And how did I know Early Friends thought so?  I responded…

Power perfected in Weakness.

II Corinthians 12:9a.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you because my power is perfected in weakness.” (NIV)

These blog posts have never “risen” to the level of scholarship; though I hoped what was written might at least be orderly.  It was my intention after following Paul through the accounts in Acts to address his epistles in chronological order in which they were written (as best discerned by scholarship or tradition). …

Be a Blessing!  Be Kind to One Another!

These exhortations from one person to another were common in the holiday season in December 2016 and have continued on into a hard winter in 2017.  I have heard them from folks across the religious and political spectrum.  It is an unusually cold and wet winter in many parts of North America and political change has many uncertain or even fearful.

These sentiments seem right at first take.  I want people to do these things also.  But on…

1 and 2 Thessalonians

In Post 8 about Paul on this question, I considered Paul’s discourse of farewell to the Ephesian Elders in Acts 20, connecting it to Ellis Hein’s openings in John.  The post concluded with this: “The grace of God is the voice declaring: ‘This is the way; walk in it.’”

This was such a departure from the meaning of the Grace of God taught to us by Protestant churches that for some time I felt at sea.  But finally a sense of assurance came and grounding that…

A Reflection re: Forgiveness

Many Christians speak of forgiveness.  Often this has to do with God’s forgiveness of us and how we get it.  I hope to address this also.  We certainly need God’s forgiveness but how do we get there?

Mathew 6:15:  “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (NIV)  “He that had shed my blood was afraid of having his hand cut off, for striking me in the church, as they called it; but I forgave him, and…

The Solid Rock

Vs 1:  My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

Chorus:  On Christ the Solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.

Vs 2:  When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace.  In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.

Vs 3:  His Oath, his covenant, his blood support me in…

The Solid Rock

Vs 1:  My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

Chorus:  On Christ the Solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.

Vs 2:  When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace.  In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.

Vs 3:  His Oath, his covenant, his blood support me in…

In the last post I stated my case for believing Paul did embrace the early Church’s teaching that Jesus is the Prophet like Moses.  The goal of this post is to draw the connection to what Paul taught as he traveled on his missionary journeys and defended himself before Roman governors.

The disciples saw Jesus’ work and their fellowship anticipated in the Old Testament scriptures. Witnessing the fulfillment of the “new covenant” described in Jeremiah 31, they could see that just as…

A look at Paul in the Book of Acts.

It has been a long time since a post to this blog, so first a brief summary of the goals and prior posts.

The intent of the series of blogs is to follow a thread that George Fox and other early Friends lifted from Scripture to describe Jesus as Messiah.  The thread starts in Deuteronomy 18:15 and goes through Peter’s sermon in Acts 3 and Stephen’s defense in chapter 7.  In prior posts I pointed to the theme in other parts of the New…

A Reflection on Mark 4: 22-25.

Another passage has come to my attention which I want to include. This partly relates to a reflection by Ellis Hein on Post 3 about the oft repeated exhortation, “Those who have ears, let them hear!”

In Post 3, the question was posed, “How might Jesus be a prophet like Moses?” A follow on question might be, “What kind of Messiah is Jesus?”

In chapter 2-4 of Mark, Jesus progressively runs counter to the people’s expectation of the Messiah:…

An aside into Hebrews

It has been some time since I made a post to this blog.  I have had subjects for at least three separate posts swirling inside and it is time to publish again.

My intent for this post was to take a look at the non-Pauline epistles in the New Testament (not already touched on in prior posts) before tackling Paul directly in the next.  In the writing my focus has narrowed.  My family has been reading the book of Hebrews together.  As I have pondered…

The following is a paper I gave at the Oregon gathering this summer which was a joint meeting of the NFF and the Wider Conservative Friends Fellowship.  It is related to the blog I have been working on this year (2011) but has its own content.  May it be of use to you who read it.

Stretching our understanding and experience of the Messiah

“They asked one another, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us as he talked to us on the road and opened the…

This post is about the Transfiguration passages (see Mathew 17:1-12, Mark 9:2-13 and Luke 9:29-36).  I believe that these are some of the most important New Testament passages connecting Jesus to the fulfillment of the prophesy in Deut 18.  The accounts vary slightly but the central thrust is clear.  Moses and Elijah appear and by their coming validate the expectations of the Old Testament connected with both.  When Peter wants to preserve the occasion, God intervenes.  God declares that…

Hello Friends,

At the end of post 3, I said that in post 4 I would look at some of the passages about the Prophet-like-Moses pointed out by other writers.  I was thinking particularly of Doug Gwyn’s Apocalypse of the Word, pp. 105 and 108.  I am going to focus this time on the references in the book of John and throw in some Doug did not list.

The first is in John chapter 1.  In verses 19-28, the writer summarizes a conversation in which representatives of the Jewish…

Hello Friends,

At the end of the second blog post, I wrote that I would begin in this third to look more directly at Moses to see what the expectation of the Prophet-like-Moses might mean.  To get there, I am going to return to Stephen’s discourse in Act 7.  In the last post the focus was on verse 37.  I encourage those of you still reading to consider the whole discourse but especially the central portion related to Moses in verses 17 – 44.  One thing to note here is that Moses gets…

In this second blog post I will begin to describe the scriptural passages that point to the prophesy of the Prophet-like-Moses, or “Prophet-like-unto-Moses” (to use George Fox’s phrase). I believe this has implications for our understanding of who Jesus is as the Messiah.

There are at least two explicit references to this expectation of a prophet like Moses in the New Testament, both in the book of Acts.  They are recorded in two separate discourses, the first by Peter in chapter 3…

Hello friends,



This is my first attempt at an original blog post and it will probably show.  Please bear with me as I find my way forward with both the topic and the technology.



Here are my short answers to the questions above:

1. I hope so.  That is what this series of blog entries and responses will attempt to explore
2. I believe it is important because if it is true, it may help give us a new starting place for understanding the work and…