I’m just now half way through writing my Romans commentary for the SOGBC series. I plan to finish it by October/November. Let me say that it is jolly hard work. Romans is, after all, the magnum opus of the Pauline corpus, with disputed purposes, some curious text-critical problems, a plethora of exegetical problems, covering wide ranging themes, weaved together with a rich tapestry of intertextual citations and allusions, with huge theological capital, and rich rhetorical technique too.  There is so... Read more

Over at Christianity.com is an excerpt of HGBJ. Also, there is a nice review of the book by Bowman Walton over at Fulcrum called Bauckham’s Line – A Review of “How God Became Jesus”. He writes: Bird and his co-authors ground their case for “Yes” mostly in Bauckham’s “line that monotheism must draw between the Creator and creatures”. Those who join their voices “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” will be interested, possibly entertained, by Bird’s discussion of... Read more

A good little booklet in the Groves series about Same Sex Unions has been put together by Ian Paul which is worth checking out. See here. The debate about same-sex unions continues to dominate the media. Within discussion, it is often assumed either that the biblical texts have little to contribute, or that, rightly understood, they do not prohibit same-sex sexual activity. This accessible study looks carefully at each of the biblical texts cited in the debate, and engages thoroughly with... Read more

Down the road from where I am at Ridley, the Uniting Church has renamed its theological college as Pilgrim College, which is rather appropriate in light of this quote from Ernst Kasemann on Rom 8:17: “[T]he Spirit  who makes Christ present on earth is the very one who imposes on them a pilgrim theology … Only he who participates on earth in the passion of the Kyrios will participate in his glory.” Read more

Just read the last chapter by of Christology Ancient and Modern by Alan Torrance on “Reclaiming the Continuing Priesthood of Christ” and noticed these powerful words: In January 2008, my wife, Jane, died of cancer. She was the most wonderful Christian woman, wife, and mother. Watching her die in pain as the cancer spread through out her body was hard, and seeing our children witness her gradual disintegration not only physically but mentally as the cancer spread through her brain was extremely... Read more

Over at Faith and Theology, Ben Myers has a great piece on The Joy of Teaching Primary Sources. He writes: To read books from the past is also to encounter minds with their own prejudices, parochialisms, and blind spots. But students soon discover that they are able to discern these limitations and to address them. Such scholarly discernment is much more difficult (i.e. usually impossible) if one is reading contemporary authors, since in this case the blind spots of the reader... Read more

Reimagining disciples, or the gospel? A review of Robert Cotton, Reimagining Discipleship,  London: SPCK, by Kara Martin I started off wanting to like this book, since it references much of what I am passionate about: Christians being whole-life disciples, public actors of faith in the marketplace, and making God’s presence known with creativity and grace. However, I became more uncomfortable with the book, the more I read. It was not until p.142, near the end, that the author articulated the reason for... Read more

Mere from the guys at Mere Orthodoxy about N.T. Wright, this time their podcast includes discussing his Reformed critics. Read more

Hillsong discovers their “inner-trinitarian-orthodoxy” in this wonderful worship song “This I Believe.” Dear Hillsong, do this more, encore, encore, encore! Next I hope they do something from the Second Helvetic Confession! Read more

Thomas Schreiner joins in the centenary celebration of the life and work of Leon Morris with a guest post on the Ridley Blog about Morris’ influence upon him. Leon Morris influenced me with his commentaries. His careful work in 1 Corinthians and the Thessalonian letters helped shaped my understanding of those Pauline letters. But his commentary on Revelation played a unique role in turning me in a new direction. If memory serves me correctly, this was the first scholarly commentary... Read more