I’ve always said that if I ever lead a church plant, I’d probably call it “Third Race Community Church.” The reference to Christians as a “third race” comes from Aristides though it has clear antecedents in Paul, esp. 1 Cor 10:32, 12:2, Gal 3:28, and Col 3:11 and arguably even in 1 Pet 2:9. Wright begins talking about this topic with the words: “Among the other buzz-words which the debate about Paul’s Jewish ‘identity’ has generated, the notion of a... Read more

From Zondervan: One area that evangelicals have generally been weak on is that of tradition. Strangely enough this is probably one area where liberals and evangelicals actually have something in common. Some more ardently liberal theologians look back on tradition as the primitive and antiquated residue of a naive and superstitious period of history, at least when compared to their own progressive and enlightened selves. Conversely, many evangelicals have tended to fear tradition as something that is cold, stale, and... Read more

From Zondervan: There are at least two key differences that distinguish theology from other intellectual disciplines like philosophy and religion. The first difference is that theology is not the study of ideas about God; it is the study of the living God. Christian theology, then, is different from the study of seventeenth century French literature, ancient Greek religion, and medieval philosophers because the Christian claims that he or she is in personal contact with the subject of study. It is... Read more

Elias Chacour Blood Brothers: The Dramatic Story of a Palestinian Christian Working for Peace in Israel rev. ed.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013. Available at Amazon.com The book Blood Brothers written by Elias Chacour, Archbishop of the Melkite Church in Israel, is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year. Chacour gives us a side of the story that is rarely heard, the side of Palestinians, told from the perspective of a Christian leader in the Melkite Church. It recounts the... Read more

One of the things that I most appreciate about N.T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God is the way that Wright steers a sober and sensible path between so many stark divisions in Pauline studies. Divisions like Greek versus Jewish backgrounds, theology versus religion, and apocalyptic versus salvation history, etc. Whereas Wright (and Dunn) is often accused of reducing Paul’s justification language to a social epiphenomena – a criticism that has some warrant in light of Wright’s occasional sweeping denials of... Read more

From Zondervan: Why does Michael Bird place the “evangel” at the center of his new book of systematic theology, Evangelical Theology? Find answers in this excerpt presented by Zondervan Academic. Evangelical Theology hits stores October 29, 2013. I unabashedly believe that the good news of Jesus Christ is the most important doctrine of them all. The gospel is the “canon within the canon” simply because the biblical canon is the scriptural expression of the “rule of faith,” which itself is an exposition of... Read more

Over at CT is an excellent interview with Dr. Lynn Cohick (Wheaton College) about the pros and cons of being a female biblical scholar. I’ve had the pleasure of  knowing Lynn through the New Covenant Commentary Series for which she wrote the Ephesians volume (a warm-up act for her forthcoming commentary on the same book for the NICNT series) and also in the Story of God Bible Commentary where we both serve as co-editors and Lynn’s Philippians commentary in that... Read more

The section on election in Paul and the Faithfulness of God is absolutely massive! It is over 115, 000 words. To begin with, Wright sets up the topic this way: Now at last we see where his sharp-edged, and often controversial, ‘doctrine of election’ in Romans 9 was going. This was never an abstract ‘doctrine of predestination’, attempting to plumb the mysteries of why some people (in general, without reference to Israel) hear and believe the gospel and others do... Read more

Peter Oakes Reading Romans in Pompeii: Paul’s Letter at Ground Level London: SPCK, 2009. Available at Amazon.com As I began writing my Romans commentary (SOGBC), I decided that I would read two books while I was doing it. First, Peter Lampe’s magisterial From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries, and second, Peter Oakes, Reading Romans in Pompeii. Oakes looks at archaeological evidence in Pompeii based around a cluster of apartments and proceeds to use it as a model... Read more

Another highlight of PFG is the way that Wright tackles the subject of Paul and Rome or the Lion and the Eagle! Wright gets into the scholarly arena with Barclay on the matter and it makes for a good read (though I’d like to read Barclay’s come back). Sadly the volume edited by Scot McKnight and Joe Modica, Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not, was not out in time for Wright to interact with. Here is what Wright concludes in his... Read more