Q. I was glad to see your emphasis on the fact that the fruit of the Spirit is indeed a package deal, and is part of a community ethic, not a description of some sort of individual moral superman or superwoman. And indeed we must live out intentionally what the Spirit is working in us, every single day. It seems clear to me that the reason some modern individualistic Christians find these ethics onerous or merely aspirational is precisely because... Read more

Q. Sometimes I just don’t understand why some people are ministers in the church, because they don’t actually believe in the possibility of a person experiencing moral change in their lives by the grace of God. It is clear to me that Paul definitely does believe in this, but he doesn’t think such a conversion or change eliminates the tension between flesh and Spirit that is the tension in the Christian life. Outwardly, as Paul says elsewhere, we are wasting... Read more

I confess to liking Ryan Reynolds as an actor. I also confess that I am not a gamer, in fact I really dislike the violence and gory of so many video games. But this movie is actually about the creating of a game where violence does not drive the action.  Rather, good, likable characters do.  One such character in the game is Guy.  Guy is not a main character in the Free City game, he’s what is called an NPC... Read more

Q. One thing that emerges from your discussion of Gal. 5 is that you think the agitators are not in fact like zealous Saul the Pharisee was in terms of meticulous keeping of the whole Mosaic covenant, nor are they trying to impose the whole Law on the Galatians. You surmise that they merely want the Galatians to do the things that make them appear to be Jewish to outsiders so they can claim the Jewish exemption from pagan religious... Read more

  Q. The Galatians, and the Greco-Roman persons in the Empire in general were part of an agonistic culture, or as we would call it, a competitive culture where people strove to establish their honor, and did it in a way that was over against other families and groups. I think John Barclay and you are both right that this sort of social milieu was brought into the churches in Galatia and Paul is combating it with appeals to unity... Read more

  Q. One of the most helpful points you make in the discussion of Gal. 5 is that some conservative readings of the Bible (and its covenants as well) are frankly too flat, by which I mean they could not imagine a stage by stage plan of God to save humankind and all creation. They can’t imagine either that some things in the Mosaic Law, as Jesus says, were given due to the hardness of heart, but once the new... Read more

Q. There are places in Galatians from at least Gal. 3 on where it seems that Paul doesn’t know exactly who it is that is troubling the Galatians. He has heard what they are demanding the Galatian gentiles do, but he seems not to know who they are. Or do you think this is a case of damnation by anonymity? To me, the further we go in the letter, the more I think he doesn’t really know, but perhaps he... Read more

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Q. I agree with you that the Sarah and Hagar tour de force in Gal. 4 is not like one of Philo’s allegories, or for that matter like Spencer’s Fairie Queene or Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. But it is an allegorizing of an historical narrative and the trick is to figure out why certain things are lined up by Paul in the way he does it. What does he mean, for example by the notion of the present Jerusalem being enslaved?... Read more

Q. On the issue of appealing to Torah ironically to get the Gentile converts not to submit to the Torah involving the Mosaic covenant I have often told my students that there is a difference between using the OT as Scripture which still speaks throughout to God’s people, and using it to talk about participation in a particular covenant, namely the Mosaic one. While Paul’s audience is not obligated to keep, observe, the Mosaic covenant they are required to learn... Read more