Long ago I bought the German edition of Peter Stuhlmacher’s NT theology, and I learned not long after it came out that Dan Bailey was to scheduled to translate that two volume theology. I have consulted Stuhlmacher’s dozens of times over the years, and have often hoped the English translation would come to make it available to my students. It’s finally done! It’s updated in some ways. Biblical Theology of the New Testament. It’s big, it’s good, it’s valuable, and... Read more

How should we interpret Scripture? What are the principles we apply when we seek to understand the message of the Bible and apply it to our lives? We looked last week at how not to read, but how then are we to read? To a certain extent our answer to these questions is determined by our day and age, living in the 21st century. It is conditioned, among other things, by the way we are raised and educated. This later... Read more

In his well-known Southern twang and humor, Jeff Foxworthy often turns crowds into raucous laughter when he offers his ideas on how to detect Southern hicks with his opening line, “You might be a redneck if you…”. As in “You might be a redneck if you think the stock market has a fence around it.” I borrow his line, not for humor, but for the serious endeavor of detecting a kingdom-mission church: “You might be a kingdom-mission church if …”... Read more

Steve Cuss asked me to interview about leadership and anxiety, which (as you know) is not my field or topic of conversation, but it was a free-wheeling interview — and led to a variety of topics, including pastor plagiarism! For Apple users: https://apple.co/2Vzpvdv For Google/Android Users: https://bit.ly/2Mb14ia For Stitcher folks: https://bit.ly/2RPsDml Read more

I’m reading John Goldingay’s distinct translation of the — ahem — First Testament, and I can’t begin to count the number of times I have asked myself questions about context and connections. One can spread the Old Testament out over more than a millennium of dates and contacts and connections and contexts, so there’s lots to consider and know and factor in as one interprets the OT. A new book is here to help, written by a a wide variety of... Read more

We have been slowly working through Denis Alexander’s new book Is There Purpose in Biology and come now to the final chapter – where he digs into the topic introduced by his subtitle. Evolution causes problems for a number of people because it uses, in fact requires, death to create life. Predation and parasitism are a normal part of the nature world. Tigers are excellent hunters, the dart frog is highly toxic, and so-called flesh eating bacteria lend an element... Read more

Check your library today and if this book is not in that library, ask the librarian to purchase it for the library. It’s a must-have for libraries. A new study by Matthew J. Thomas called Paul’s ‘Works of the Law’ in the Perspective of Second Century Reception, [slightly cheaper here] an expensive published PhD in the academic WUNT series, contends that analysis of the major texts of the 2d Century leads to a singular conclusion: the “new” perspective is earlier than... Read more

In Matthew Gordley, New Testament Christological Hymns, a case is made that Colossians 1:15-20 is a kind of resistance literature or poetry. We are asking How we know when something in the NT is resistance-of-the-empire literature or statement? I will argue that the kind of argument Gordley makes diminishes the potency of the anti-imperial reading and of the resistance literature, but that at some level Colossians 1:15-20 offers a worldview at odds with Rome, with empire, and this therefore at some... Read more

It never fails. In the classroom. A question from a student. A response from the professor. Some name is mentioned — Hodge, Barth, Tillich, a movement comes up — dispensationalism, Princetonianism, Neo-Orthodoxy, “post” conservative, or well-known methods are invoked — feminist, social gospel, etc.. “Can you explain that?” The conversation continues, some light is shed, and then we get back to the original question. Time is not wasted. But there is a collection of names, movements, and methods that pervade... Read more

Father in heaven, who, at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan, proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen BCP Read more