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Eric R. Severson has collected for his readers 29 different authors' treatments of the sheep and goats parable from Matthew 25. These range from Saint Irenaeus in the second century to George Whitefield in the eighteenth. Each selection is followed by "reading questions" and bibliography. Sometimes the sheep and goats passage is central and sometimes not. Where it was not, I still found the passage worthwhile reading on other grounds. (Julian of Norwich, for example, gave what some call a mystical vision, but which I call a deep meditation on Scripture.) The texts are from the public domain, and many of them can be found in the online Christian Classics Ethereal Library (www.ccel.org). As Severson notes, "These passages are raw; they appear, for the most part, in the context of ministerial concern and pastoral anxieties" (viii). Severson's collection makes for fresher reading than I imagine a reader would find diving unaided into the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Besides, book form is easier on the eye for extended reading.
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Rick Ritchie resides in Southern California and is a long-time contributor to Modern Reformation. He is a graduate of Christ College Irvine and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.
Issue: "The New Atheism" March/April 2008 Vol. 17 No. 2 Page number(s): 59-60
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