BEN: Let’s talk about the much debated Hebrew word hesed. I remember having a chat with Walt Bruegemman at Baylor about this and he was insisting the term means a very specific kind of love— love and loyalty to one’s covenant partners. I was not persuaded the term had these kinds of specific limitations. Hesed is used in the OT to describe both Rahab’s kindness to the spies and Ruth’s relationship to someone she had no covenant relationship with. Furthermore,... Read more

BEN: Recently, an OT scholar, Michael Heiser, has suggested that the reason God relates to human beings as he does, and relentlessly pursues his plan of redemption is because God wants a human family to dwell with forever. Would you see this as compatible with some of the emphases in your study? If so how so? I can’t imagine God inherently needing a human family, since in a sense, the Trinity itself is a divine family of sorts involving love... Read more

BEN: One of the repeated themes that comes up in this book is God’s freedom, freedom to reveal himself when he wants, how he wants, where he wants, to whom he wants, and perhaps most importantly the necessity for God to do so if humans or a collective group of people are to have any sort of personal relationship with the Creator of all things. Explain if you will why this particular emphasis was so important for this project? RICHARD:... Read more

Good things sometimes do come in small packages, and this book is one of them. I may only be 128 pages long, but it is packed with close reasoning and reflections that we have come to expect of a scholar of Richard Bauckham’s caliber, and on top of all that, it is readable, accessible not just for scholars but also for pastors and educated lay persons. The book involves lectures Richard gave at Acadia in Nova Scotia, as well as... Read more

The Bosco Verticale / Vertical Forest high-rise complex in Milan, Italy. The plant life, which is said to equal 3 hectares of forests (20,000 sq m), not only moderates the temperature in summer and winter but also converts as much as 30 tonnes of CO2 each year. On top of that, it filters out dust particles, protects the residents from noise pollution and creates a microhabitat for insects and birds. Read more

John Chrysostom was without cavil the greatest exegete of his age, especially when it comes to the exegesis of Paul. While he certainly does not deny the deadly effects of original sin on the whole human race (being no Pelagian), he also is quite clear about the positive effects of God’s grace before during and after conversion. He does not however think, as do Calvinists of many ages, that God’s grace is irresistible, especially not when it comes to embracing... Read more

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C. Tilling, Paul’s Divine Christology, (Eerdmans, 2015, 336 pages). There are not many doctoral dissertations that move the needle dramatically in a new positive direction in the huge field of Pauline studies. But Chris Tilling’s Paul’s Divine Christology (which originally appeared in print in the WUNT series of J.C.B. Mohr in 2012) is the exception to all such evaluations of the work of budding NT scholars. While it is true that one of the main criteria for evaluating a doctoral... Read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkIDPU3O3hk It is hard to believe that while every other Western industrial nation including the U.K., Australia, Germany, and New Zealand etc. has had a woman President or Prime Minster or Queen!! Not America. I like Sheryl Crow’s new song and its message as well. Men have managed to mess up and start every major war in human history. It’s time America gives a woman chance at least at Vice President. Read more

BEN: I especially enjoyed the last chapter of your book and simply Amen the call to irenic discussions even of things that deeply divide us as Evangelicals. There are some recent revelations about Whitefield that are disturbing about his refusal to free his slaves even on his deathbed, and indeed his whole approach to that matter in contrast to Wesley’s views on abolition. But Whitefield even disassociated himself from some of the strident Whitefieldian Welsh Methodists who spent too much... Read more