About Reading Romans Backwards. Why read Romans backwards? First, since most who read Romans are swamped by the theological depth and debates about it, by the time they get to Romans 9 they may be exhausted and even more if they get to Romans 12. If we don’t read it first we may never get to it, and if we never get to it we will not be reading the letter in its own, fuller context. Second, our readings of Romans,… Read more

Luke Timothy Johnson concludes his recent book Miracles: God’s Presence and Power in Creation, with some pastoral advice – for pastors in particular. There are some great insights and ideas in this chapter.  The problem is a serious one. It goes beyond a belief in Scripture to accept divine agency as a very personal reality. The challenge facing contemporary Christians in the matter of miracles is daunting. … Incarnation and resurrection alike evade strictly evade strictly historical categories. Because they… Read more

If the Gospels, our four Gospels in the NT canon, are biographies in genre what does that mean for history? Craig Keener in what will become a major milestone Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels (#ad), addresses this question with circumspect analysis and cautious conclusions. I have now worked through this 500 pager  and think his conclusions are worth posting here as I encourage every theological library to purchase a copy of this book: Traditional skeptical and fundamentalist… Read more

 By Kelly Edmiston If you could have lunch with one person who would it be? This is an “ice breaker question” that I have often used in youth ministry settings over the last thirteen years. Good “get to know you” questions are hard to come by. And this question helps me understand what my students are interested in. It helps me know what motivates them and interests them. My students will choose to have lunch with Rihanna or Kanye or… Read more

It’s a debate not likely to lead to an overwhelming consensus, but Daniel J. Treier’s  Introducing Evangelical Theology builds on a credal approach. What is added to the lines, between the lines, before the lines, after the lines… all matters for an evangelical theology. In a kind of Barth-like move he opens with nothing less than 15 theses for this evangelical theology and here they are: Christian theology is a communicative practice of faith seeking understanding, in response to the… Read more

We’ve been working through Luke Timothy Johnson’s recent book Miracles: God’s Presence and Power in Creation. The focus in this book is on the New Testament miracles, signs and wonders of Jesus recorded in the Gospels as well as the by the Apostles recorded in the book of Acts. Having looked at the miracles recorded in the synoptic Gospels and Acts, it is fitting to conclude with the book of John. The book of John contains no infancy narrative, and… Read more

This is the kind of article we, especially we educators, all need to read carefully and keep near us. Thank you Jill and thanks to CBE for permissions given to post CBE posts like this. CBE By Jill Richardson On November 06, 2019 Personal Stories Women in Ministry It was my first year of seminary. I looked over the worksheet our spiritual development professor had just handed out. “Place the amount of time you spend on each activity in the blank… Read more

Michael Gorman has fashioned a Pauline and NT theology rooted in cruciformity, and his approach is a NT theology, a NT ethic, and a NT ecclesiology. As such his work is a singularly important contribution to NT studies. His newest collect of essays expresses that theology in shorter chapter length forms:  Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul’s Theology and Spirituality (#ad). But Gorman’s work is eclectic and this is becoming increasingly valuable to both professors and pastors: his central theme is… Read more

By Ruth Tucker When I learned recently of John MacArthur’s criticism of the SBC, I immediately thought of Charles H. Spurgeon and the “Downgrade Controversy.” MacArthur, as was recently highlighted in a post on this blog, accused the SBC of losing its faith in biblical authority. The denomination, by MacArthur’s account, had taken a “headlong plunge” toward women preachers: “When you literally overturn the teaching of Scripture to empower people who want power, you have given up biblical authority.” MacArthur… Read more