Why Do I Blog?

Recently, someone who was new to my blog asked me a simple yet profound question: “Why do you blog?” While I have addressed this question many times before, I welcome this opportunity to introduce myself and explain the purpose behind my blog to new readers who have joined this community of Old Testament learners.

A Mission to Share Knowledge

I blog because I am driven by a deep desire to promote knowledge of the Old Testament to a wider, more diverse audience than I could ever reach in a traditional classroom setting. For 33 years, I devoted my life to teaching the Old Testament in various academic institutions. My teaching career took me to prestigious seminaries and universities, including Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where I served as an Instructor; Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri, where I held the position of Professor; and Northern Baptist Seminary in Lombard, Illinois. My passion for Old Testament studies also led me beyond American borders, as I served as a visiting professor at the Baptist Seminary in Moscow, Russia, and the Central Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Kansas.

Throughout these three decades of teaching, I have had the privilege of guiding students through every book of the Old Testament. Each course, each lecture, and each discussion deepened my conviction that the riches of Old Testament literature, theology, and history deserve to be accessible to everyone who seeks to understand Scripture more deeply.

A Wealth of Source Material

Over my 33 years in the classroom, I have accumulated an extensive repository of teaching materials that now serve as the foundation for my blog. I authored an introduction to the Old Testament in Spanish, making these ancient texts accessible to Spanish-speaking students. I also wrote comprehensive commentaries on Deuteronomy, 1-2 Chronicles, and 1-2 Kings, exploring the historical, theological, and literary dimensions of these pivotal biblical books.

For each course I taught, I prepared detailed outlines of my lectures to help students follow along and review the material. These were not mere skeletal frameworks but substantive documents. My outlines for the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets each exceeded 120 pages, covering everything from textual analysis to theological themes. My outline for Old Testament Theology was even more extensive, spanning more than 200 pages and synthesizing decades of research and reflection.

Since I created comprehensive outlines for every book of the Old Testament, I have an abundance of source material from which to draw blog posts. This vast collection of teaching resources ensures that I can continue to provide substantial, well-researched content for years to come.

From Pulpit and Podium to the Page

My blog posts emerge not only from the classroom but also from various presentations I have made in church settings. Academic knowledge finds its fullest expression when it intersects with the lived faith of congregations. My series of posts on the failures of Abraham, for instance, originated from a series of presentations I delivered at a church in Oak Brook, Illinois. Similarly, my series on the Confessions of Jeremiah evolved from studies I presented to the senior adult group at The Compass Church in Naperville, Illinois. These church-based presentations remind me that the Old Testament speaks powerfully to contemporary believers when properly explained and applied.

Many posts on my blog are based on academic presentations, scholarly lectures, and church teaching engagements, bridging the gap between the academy and the pew.

Ministry Experience Informing Biblical Teaching

During my many years of teaching in seminaries, I also served as pastor of numerous churches across Missouri, Kentucky, and Illinois. Most notably, I served as Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Chicago for 20 years. This extended pastoral ministry gave me invaluable insights into how Old Testament texts address the real-life struggles, questions, and hopes of ordinary believers.

Many of the Old Testament sermons I preached at Trinity and other churches have been preserved in manuscript format and have subsequently become posts for my blog. These sermons represent the intersection of careful exegesis and pastoral wisdom, demonstrating how ancient texts continue to speak to modern congregations.

In addition to my teaching and pastoral work, I wrote numerous Sunday School lessons for the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. While many of these lessons have never been published as blog posts, they represent another rich vein of material that could be reworked and presented to the larger audience that follows my blog.

An Abundance Yet to Be Shared

When I reflect on the volume of material I have accumulated over my career, I am both humbled and energized. I have such an abundance of content to share with my readers that these materials may well outlive me and remain unpublished. This reality motivates me to be diligent and intentional about what I share, knowing that each post represents knowledge that might otherwise remain locked away in file cabinets or stored on hard drives.

A Global Classroom

One of the most gratifying aspects of blogging is the global reach it provides. My blog is read in almost every country of the world. Students, pastors, scholars, and interested laypeople from diverse cultures and contexts engage with the Old Testament through posts I write from my study. This international readership transforms my blog into something far more expansive than any physical classroom could be.

So, why do I blog? The teacher in me believes that people everywhere deserve to gain a better knowledge of the Old Testament. The Scriptures contain wisdom, beauty, challenge, and hope that transcend cultural and temporal boundaries. As long as I am able, I plan to use the material I have developed over the years, the content that I once shared exclusively with my seminary students, and make it available to a vast audience who are hungry to know more about the Old Testament.

The World as My Seminary

Through my blog, the world becomes my seminary. In this virtual classroom, I find not dozens but hundreds and even thousands of students who want to receive advanced teaching on Old Testament topics. These students may never set foot on a seminary campus, but they bring the same curiosity, the same spiritual hunger, and often the same intellectual rigor that I encountered in traditional academic settings.

Unlike a physical classroom with limited enrollment, my blog allows me to mentor an unlimited number of students simultaneously. A post I write today might be read by someone in Ghana tomorrow, by a pastor in Brazil next week, and by a graduate student in South Korea next month. The publication of my series on “The Confessions of Jeremiah” in Kannada, a south Indian language, proves the point. This exponential reach fulfills my calling as a teacher in ways I could never have imagined when I first stood before a classroom decades ago.

The Heart of the Matter

At its core, my blog exists to illuminate the Old Testament for those who seek deeper understanding. Whether you are a seminary student working on a research paper, a pastor preparing a sermon, a Bible study leader looking for insights to share with your group, or simply someone who loves Scripture and wants to understand it better, my blog is designed for you.

The Old Testament is not a relic of the distant past but a living word that continues to shape faith, challenge assumptions, and reveal God’s character and purposes. Every post I write is an invitation to engage with these ancient texts more thoughtfully, more reverently, and more fruitfully.

This is the reason I blog. This is my mission, my calling, and my joy.

Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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If you are looking for other series of studies on the Old Testament, visit the Archive section and you will find many studies that deal with a variety of Old Testament topics.