Dirk G Van der Merwe
Biographic Data
| ID | 6794779 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dirk G Van der Merwe |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dirk G |
| FAMILY NAME | Van der Merwe |
| SIGNATURE | VAN DER MERWE D G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Africa |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9402-3702 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 24 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Theology, Christian spirituality and the Lord’s prayer according to the Gospel of Matthew
Prayer facilitates and constitutes dialogue between God and Christians. It also enables believers to experience God in prayer. A prerequisite is the recognition that God is the bona fide source of daily provision and the supreme One who brings about spiritual transformation and maturity. The objective of this research was to explore how the Lord’s Prayer offers the principal spiritual directives that guide Christians towards spiritual growth and …
Lived experiences of the ‘Wisdom of God’ according to 1 Corinthians 2
This article investigates the theological concept Wisdom of God, which could appear vague to many Christians. Paul refers 17 times to the concept wisdom in the first epistle to the Corinthians. The first four chapters include 16 references to wisdom, and then again in 12:8, where Paul uses it with reference to a spiritual gift. The nine occurrences of wisdom in chapter one exposes a dialectical approach in which the ‘Wisdom of God’ is opposed to …
The spirituality of endurance
New Testament authors frequently engage with Old Testament characters for various reasons: to be exemplars, to learn from them, to motivate the readers, to encourage the readers, only to name a few. This practice of engagement prompts various spiritualities (‘lived experiences’) in both the reading of those texts and in the lifestyles of readers. In this research, the epistle of James has been chosen to investigate the spirituality of endurance e…
The incomprehensibility of God
This research investigates the theological concept, ‘The incomprehensibility of God’, from a Johannine perspective. The primary objective is to discern the ‘incomprehensibility of God’ from a reciprocal interdependence between knowledge (understanding) and mystery. It explains how the endeavour to understand the divine, continuously prompts mystery. Humans can only know, communicate with, relate to and talk about God, in terms of human perspectiv…
The ‘righteousness of the children of God’ according to the First Epistle of John
The author of the First Epistle of John predominantly addresses the ‘theological concept of righteousness’ in two pericopes: pericope 1 (1:5–2:2) concerns the ‘Righteousness of God’, and pericope 2 (2:28–3:12) explores the ‘Righteousness of God’s children’ from various perspectives. The adjective, δίκαιος, occurs twice (1:9 and 2:1) and the noun, ἀδικίας, appears once (1:9) in the first pericope. In the second pericope, the adjective, δίκαιος, oc…
The ‘lived experiences’ of the love of God according to a prayer in the letter of Ephesians
The epistle to the Ephesians is regarded as a circular letter, yet it also contains two specific intercessory prayers (1:15–23; 3:14–21) in which the Trinity concept features persuasively. On the one side, this research tends to point out how the divine attribute of love relates to all three the divine persons in cooperation and how the trinity concept features in the prayer in Ephesians 3:14–21. On the other side, the article also aims to identi…
The concept and activity of ‘obedience’ in the Gospel of John
The concept and activity of obedience can be regarded as fundamental to human existence as well as to Christian religion. The focus of this study was to investigate the occurrence of this concept in the Gospel of John. Of the two well-known Greek nouns ὑπακοή and ἀπειθέω (translated as ‘obedience’), and the two related verbs ὑπακούω and ἀπειθέω (translated as ‘obedient’), only ἀπειθέω occurs once (3:36) in the Gospel of John. The verb τηρέω has b…
Existence beyond death? Encouraging those who face death
Modern medical technology has transformed the way people live and the way they die. Today, in some instances the process of dying takes longer, due to more advanced medical treatment and therefore requires more sophisticated care than before. This contributes to the fact that terminally ill people are wrestling with the reality of death. This article endeavours to investigate the phenomenon of death from a biblical perspective and specifically at…
The use of the Bible in theology
If the theme of this special edition can be reformulated as a question (what was and is the current use of the Bible in theology?), it would be challenging and very difficult to answer the question because of a diverse usage of the Bible throughout history and today, stretching in a continuum of both vertical and horizontal probabilities: vertically, theism vs. atheism and horizontally, worldliness vs. holiness. In this research, the reasoning wi…
The use of interactive storytelling, cartoon animation and educational gaming to communicate the biblical message to preschool children
This article focuses on how biblical content and spiritualities can be communicated, probably more effectively, to (late) preschool children by using information technology, which has already been implemented successfully for years in secular and religious environments. Because children enjoy listening to stories, watching cartoons and playing every day, the approach in this research will be to propose a particular construct to communicate biblic…
The Christian spirituality of the love of God
Christians will never be able to fully grasp the identity and character of God. The Bible, despite acknowledging its divine inspiration, cannot fully communicate and explain the attributes or qualities of a God nobody has ever seen (Jn 1:18; 1 Jn 4:12, cf. 4:20). Christians do believe in the love, forgiveness and grace/mercy of God, but will never comprehend it completely; although, we still need to continuously investigate it. The objective of t…
Prayer, the encounter and participation, the experience
Numerous references to prayer occur throughout the Old Testament and New Testament. These prayers relate closely to particular circumstances and needs where the petitioner appeals to God, illustrating the importance of prayer as part of the dialogue and communication between God (in the image of a Father) and Israel and the Church (in the image of his children). This article investigates Paul’s contribution to this dialogue. In 1 Thessalonians 5:…
Attitudes Towards Sexuality in Song of Songs and in the Corpus Paulinum
Throughout history Song of Songs has been read and interpreted from various perspectives. Popular and academic Jewish and Christian publications allegorise and metaphorise the meaning of the words and images in Song of Songs. The focus of this research is on a literary-didactic reading as proposed by Turner, which seems to be the most obvious interpretation of Song of Songs. The research on the sexuality perspective communicated in the Song is th…
The Woman in Song of Songs
The woman in Song of Songs seems to be the main character in dialogue with a lover and friends. Over many centuries several hypotheses have appeared about the epistemological questions concerning the identity and character of this woman as well as the interpretation of her dialogue with other characters in the Song. The unencumbered, rich and vibrant metaphoric text of Song of Songs describes the woman as a most beautiful and dynamic character. T…
Erotic fantasy, spirituality and Song of Songs
Fantasy plays an essential role in sexual activities. This article investigates (erotic) fantasy from a literary text perspective according to Song of Songs in the Christian Bible. The Song, according to many commentaries, starts with a reference to sex in Canticle 1:2, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine . Although the word sex is not mentioned in the Song, it is referred to and implied a number of tim…
Reading the Bible in the 21st century
This essay is to be an extension of the essay Reading the Bible in the 21st century: Some hermeneutical principles: Part 1 . Two more hermeneutical aspects are proposed and discussed in this essay: the aspects of spirituality and embodiment. These two aspects are presented in this essay to supplement and compliment the hermeneutical process. A few remarks on the idiosyncrasy of texts pave the way for the legitimate exploitation of spiritualities …
Reading the Bible in the 21st century
Many books and articles have been published over several decades on biblical hermeneutics to capture the epistemology of biblical hermeneutics and the phenomenology of interpretation, communication and language in order to direct the Bible reader how to read the ancient texts, assembled in the Bible, sensibly. The first part of this essay looks briefly into the history of biblical hermeneutics of the past century in order to generate an orientati…
Old Testament spirituality in the gospel of John
The majority of early Christian documents are saturated with Jewish thought. Although Second-Temple Judaism did include a certain amount of diversity, when the Gospel of John was written in different phases during the latter half of the 1st century, the written Torah was a fixed part of Jewish Scripture. In this research, I endeavour to point out how Torah themes saturate the Prologue of the Gospel of John and also how these themes create a certa…
The impact of the economic system on social and labour relations in the early church as revealed in the letter of James
The Letter of James addresses the dichotomy between the socioeconomic classes of the rich (πλούσιος) and the poor (πτωχὸς). This research reveals the social and labour relations resulting from this dichotomy and the wealth of socioeconomic data contained in this letter. The rich are alerted to the consequences of their unrighteousness towards the poor, and the poor receive exhortations of encouragement. The metaphoric use of richness is also exam…
Eschatology in the first epistle of John
The schism that occurred in the Johannine community has been reinterpreted by the author of the first Epistle of John. In his opinion, the incident involving the schismatics could be interpreted as the coming of the antichrist(s), which marks the ‘final hour’ and describes an eschatological moment. This eschatological moment heightens the community’ s awareness of the fact that they live in an eschatological time, which will, at some time in the …
The glory-motif in John 17
In John 17:1-5 a Greek noun occurs once and the verb four times. They are consequently translated as ‘glory’ and ‘glorification’ in various Bible translations. This research is an attempt to determine the various perspectives and possible semantic meanings respectively of these words in order to suggest meaningful alternatives that could be used in a dynamic-equivalent or periphrastic translation. The methodology followed is: first a look at a fe…
Imitatio Christi in the fourth gospel
Imitatio Christi is a concept which, although not referred to explicitly in the Fourth Gospel, is clearly spelled out in relation to the agency motif occurring in the Gospel. The disciples of Jesus have been appointed as his agents to continue his mission after his departure to his Father. In giving this message through to his readers, the Fourth Evangelist refers to Jesus' calling of his disciples, [Foreign font omitted]; pictures Jesus as [Fore…
John 17
In this paper it will be pointed out that Jesus did not commission his disciples with a new mission, but instructed them to continue and extend his own mission. This implies that in their following of Jesus, they would adopt a new way of life which related to Jesus’ way of life. The departure of Jesus gave his disciples the opportunity to take his place in the world. Through this new way of life (discipleship) Jesus would live in them and they in…
A historical survey and critical evaluation concerning discipleship in the fourth gospel
A historical survey and critical evaluation concerning discipleship in the Fourth Gospel The historical survey about discipleship in the Fourth Gospel indicates that the literature of the second half of this century was sketchy about this theme. Up till 1972 a thematic-theological approach highlighted some characteristics of discipleship as they appeared in all four gospels. The study of Jimenez (1972) was the first substantial approach to resear…
The glory-motif in John 17
In John 17:1-5 a Greek noun occurs once and the verb four times. They are consequently translated as ‘glory’ and ‘glorification’ in various Bible translations. This research is an attempt to determine the various perspectives and possible semantic meanings respectively of these words in order to suggest meaningful alternatives that could be used in a dynamic-equivalent or periphrastic translation. The methodology followed is: first a look at a fe…
Imitatio Christi in the fourth gospel
Imitatio Christi is a concept which, although not referred to explicitly in the Fourth Gospel, is clearly spelled out in relation to the agency motif occurring in the Gospel. The disciples of Jesus have been appointed as his agents to continue his mission after his departure to his Father. In giving this message through to his readers, the Fourth Evangelist refers to Jesus' calling of his disciples, [Foreign font omitted]; pictures Jesus as [Fore…
The ‘righteousness of the children of God’ according to the First Epistle of John
The author of the First Epistle of John predominantly addresses the ‘theological concept of righteousness’ in two pericopes: pericope 1 (1:5–2:2) concerns the ‘Righteousness of God’, and pericope 2 (2:28–3:12) explores the ‘Righteousness of God’s children’ from various perspectives. The adjective, δίκαιος, occurs twice (1:9 and 2:1) and the noun, ἀδικίας, appears once (1:9) in the first pericope. In the second pericope, the adjective, δίκαιος, oc…
The ‘lived experiences’ of the love of God according to a prayer in the letter of Ephesians
The epistle to the Ephesians is regarded as a circular letter, yet it also contains two specific intercessory prayers (1:15–23; 3:14–21) in which the Trinity concept features persuasively. On the one side, this research tends to point out how the divine attribute of love relates to all three the divine persons in cooperation and how the trinity concept features in the prayer in Ephesians 3:14–21. On the other side, the article also aims to identi…
The Christian spirituality of the love of God
Christians will never be able to fully grasp the identity and character of God. The Bible, despite acknowledging its divine inspiration, cannot fully communicate and explain the attributes or qualities of a God nobody has ever seen (Jn 1:18; 1 Jn 4:12, cf. 4:20). Christians do believe in the love, forgiveness and grace/mercy of God, but will never comprehend it completely; although, we still need to continuously investigate it. The objective of t…
A historical survey and critical evaluation concerning discipleship in the fourth gospel
A historical survey and critical evaluation concerning discipleship in the Fourth Gospel The historical survey about discipleship in the Fourth Gospel indicates that the literature of the second half of this century was sketchy about this theme. Up till 1972 a thematic-theological approach highlighted some characteristics of discipleship as they appeared in all four gospels. The study of Jimenez (1972) was the first substantial approach to resear…
John 17
In this paper it will be pointed out that Jesus did not commission his disciples with a new mission, but instructed them to continue and extend his own mission. This implies that in their following of Jesus, they would adopt a new way of life which related to Jesus’ way of life. The departure of Jesus gave his disciples the opportunity to take his place in the world. Through this new way of life (discipleship) Jesus would live in them and they in…
Imitatio Christi in the fourth gospel
Imitatio Christi is a concept which, although not referred to explicitly in the Fourth Gospel, is clearly spelled out in relation to the agency motif occurring in the Gospel. The disciples of Jesus have been appointed as his agents to continue his mission after his departure to his Father. In giving this message through to his readers, the Fourth Evangelist refers to Jesus' calling of his disciples, [Foreign font omitted]; pictures Jesus as [Fore…
The glory-motif in John 17
In John 17:1-5 a Greek noun occurs once and the verb four times. They are consequently translated as ‘glory’ and ‘glorification’ in various Bible translations. This research is an attempt to determine the various perspectives and possible semantic meanings respectively of these words in order to suggest meaningful alternatives that could be used in a dynamic-equivalent or periphrastic translation. The methodology followed is: first a look at a fe…
Eschatology in the first epistle of John
The schism that occurred in the Johannine community has been reinterpreted by the author of the first Epistle of John. In his opinion, the incident involving the schismatics could be interpreted as the coming of the antichrist(s), which marks the ‘final hour’ and describes an eschatological moment. This eschatological moment heightens the community’ s awareness of the fact that they live in an eschatological time, which will, at some time in the …
The impact of the economic system on social and labour relations in the early church as revealed in the letter of James
The Letter of James addresses the dichotomy between the socioeconomic classes of the rich (πλούσιος) and the poor (πτωχὸς). This research reveals the social and labour relations resulting from this dichotomy and the wealth of socioeconomic data contained in this letter. The rich are alerted to the consequences of their unrighteousness towards the poor, and the poor receive exhortations of encouragement. The metaphoric use of richness is also exam…
Old Testament spirituality in the gospel of John
The majority of early Christian documents are saturated with Jewish thought. Although Second-Temple Judaism did include a certain amount of diversity, when the Gospel of John was written in different phases during the latter half of the 1st century, the written Torah was a fixed part of Jewish Scripture. In this research, I endeavour to point out how Torah themes saturate the Prologue of the Gospel of John and also how these themes create a certa…
Reading the Bible in the 21st century
This essay is to be an extension of the essay Reading the Bible in the 21st century: Some hermeneutical principles: Part 1 . Two more hermeneutical aspects are proposed and discussed in this essay: the aspects of spirituality and embodiment. These two aspects are presented in this essay to supplement and compliment the hermeneutical process. A few remarks on the idiosyncrasy of texts pave the way for the legitimate exploitation of spiritualities …
Reading the Bible in the 21st century
Many books and articles have been published over several decades on biblical hermeneutics to capture the epistemology of biblical hermeneutics and the phenomenology of interpretation, communication and language in order to direct the Bible reader how to read the ancient texts, assembled in the Bible, sensibly. The first part of this essay looks briefly into the history of biblical hermeneutics of the past century in order to generate an orientati…
Attitudes Towards Sexuality in Song of Songs and in the Corpus Paulinum
Throughout history Song of Songs has been read and interpreted from various perspectives. Popular and academic Jewish and Christian publications allegorise and metaphorise the meaning of the words and images in Song of Songs. The focus of this research is on a literary-didactic reading as proposed by Turner, which seems to be the most obvious interpretation of Song of Songs. The research on the sexuality perspective communicated in the Song is th…
The Woman in Song of Songs
The woman in Song of Songs seems to be the main character in dialogue with a lover and friends. Over many centuries several hypotheses have appeared about the epistemological questions concerning the identity and character of this woman as well as the interpretation of her dialogue with other characters in the Song. The unencumbered, rich and vibrant metaphoric text of Song of Songs describes the woman as a most beautiful and dynamic character. T…
Erotic fantasy, spirituality and Song of Songs
Fantasy plays an essential role in sexual activities. This article investigates (erotic) fantasy from a literary text perspective according to Song of Songs in the Christian Bible. The Song, according to many commentaries, starts with a reference to sex in Canticle 1:2, Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine . Although the word sex is not mentioned in the Song, it is referred to and implied a number of tim…
Prayer, the encounter and participation, the experience
Numerous references to prayer occur throughout the Old Testament and New Testament. These prayers relate closely to particular circumstances and needs where the petitioner appeals to God, illustrating the importance of prayer as part of the dialogue and communication between God (in the image of a Father) and Israel and the Church (in the image of his children). This article investigates Paul’s contribution to this dialogue. In 1 Thessalonians 5:…
Existence beyond death? Encouraging those who face death
Modern medical technology has transformed the way people live and the way they die. Today, in some instances the process of dying takes longer, due to more advanced medical treatment and therefore requires more sophisticated care than before. This contributes to the fact that terminally ill people are wrestling with the reality of death. This article endeavours to investigate the phenomenon of death from a biblical perspective and specifically at…
The use of the Bible in theology
If the theme of this special edition can be reformulated as a question (what was and is the current use of the Bible in theology?), it would be challenging and very difficult to answer the question because of a diverse usage of the Bible throughout history and today, stretching in a continuum of both vertical and horizontal probabilities: vertically, theism vs. atheism and horizontally, worldliness vs. holiness. In this research, the reasoning wi…
The use of interactive storytelling, cartoon animation and educational gaming to communicate the biblical message to preschool children
This article focuses on how biblical content and spiritualities can be communicated, probably more effectively, to (late) preschool children by using information technology, which has already been implemented successfully for years in secular and religious environments. Because children enjoy listening to stories, watching cartoons and playing every day, the approach in this research will be to propose a particular construct to communicate biblic…
The Christian spirituality of the love of God
Christians will never be able to fully grasp the identity and character of God. The Bible, despite acknowledging its divine inspiration, cannot fully communicate and explain the attributes or qualities of a God nobody has ever seen (Jn 1:18; 1 Jn 4:12, cf. 4:20). Christians do believe in the love, forgiveness and grace/mercy of God, but will never comprehend it completely; although, we still need to continuously investigate it. The objective of t…
The ‘lived experiences’ of the love of God according to a prayer in the letter of Ephesians
The epistle to the Ephesians is regarded as a circular letter, yet it also contains two specific intercessory prayers (1:15–23; 3:14–21) in which the Trinity concept features persuasively. On the one side, this research tends to point out how the divine attribute of love relates to all three the divine persons in cooperation and how the trinity concept features in the prayer in Ephesians 3:14–21. On the other side, the article also aims to identi…
The concept and activity of ‘obedience’ in the Gospel of John
The concept and activity of obedience can be regarded as fundamental to human existence as well as to Christian religion. The focus of this study was to investigate the occurrence of this concept in the Gospel of John. Of the two well-known Greek nouns ὑπακοή and ἀπειθέω (translated as ‘obedience’), and the two related verbs ὑπακούω and ἀπειθέω (translated as ‘obedient’), only ἀπειθέω occurs once (3:36) in the Gospel of John. The verb τηρέω has b…
The ‘righteousness of the children of God’ according to the First Epistle of John
The author of the First Epistle of John predominantly addresses the ‘theological concept of righteousness’ in two pericopes: pericope 1 (1:5–2:2) concerns the ‘Righteousness of God’, and pericope 2 (2:28–3:12) explores the ‘Righteousness of God’s children’ from various perspectives. The adjective, δίκαιος, occurs twice (1:9 and 2:1) and the noun, ἀδικίας, appears once (1:9) in the first pericope. In the second pericope, the adjective, δίκαιος, oc…
Lived experiences of the ‘Wisdom of God’ according to 1 Corinthians 2
This article investigates the theological concept Wisdom of God, which could appear vague to many Christians. Paul refers 17 times to the concept wisdom in the first epistle to the Corinthians. The first four chapters include 16 references to wisdom, and then again in 12:8, where Paul uses it with reference to a spiritual gift. The nine occurrences of wisdom in chapter one exposes a dialectical approach in which the ‘Wisdom of God’ is opposed to …
The spirituality of endurance
New Testament authors frequently engage with Old Testament characters for various reasons: to be exemplars, to learn from them, to motivate the readers, to encourage the readers, only to name a few. This practice of engagement prompts various spiritualities (‘lived experiences’) in both the reading of those texts and in the lifestyles of readers. In this research, the epistle of James has been chosen to investigate the spirituality of endurance e…
The incomprehensibility of God
This research investigates the theological concept, ‘The incomprehensibility of God’, from a Johannine perspective. The primary objective is to discern the ‘incomprehensibility of God’ from a reciprocal interdependence between knowledge (understanding) and mystery. It explains how the endeavour to understand the divine, continuously prompts mystery. Humans can only know, communicate with, relate to and talk about God, in terms of human perspectiv…
Theology, Christian spirituality and the Lord’s prayer according to the Gospel of Matthew
Prayer facilitates and constitutes dialogue between God and Christians. It also enables believers to experience God in prayer. A prerequisite is the recognition that God is the bona fide source of daily provision and the supreme One who brings about spiritual transformation and maturity. The objective of this research was to explore how the Lord’s Prayer offers the principal spiritual directives that guide Christians towards spiritual growth and …
Biblical Studies and Interpretation (20 works) · Philosophy (20 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Theology (15 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Spirituality (10 works) · Art (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Literature (8 works) · Linguistics (7 works)