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This proposal co-authored with Thomas Holsteen. In Confessions, Augustine presents two vignettes (3.2.2-4; 8.6.14-7.17) that, in important ways, parallel our interactions with social media. Both involve Augustine’s interaction and response to narratives, and both serve as smaller stories within the grand story of Confessions itself. Placing these two vignettes alongside one another sheds light on … Read more
The modern missions movement has seen profound shifts in theology, philosophy, and strategy, most notably described in seminal works such as Bosch’s Transforming Mission and Wright’s The Mission of God. An additional shift in missions literature has occurred in a departure from patriarchal paradigms in missions toward an accentuation of cultural humility and mutuality in … Read more
Between 137 and 144 CE, or thereabout, Marcion presented a new theology for the Christian communities in Rome – containing teaching that the Roman presbytery eventually could not endorse. Marcion’s influence, however, was substantial both then and subsequently. After his expulsion from the Roman Church, he became the founder of an influential parallel church structure. … Read more
If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, do I speak with the mind of Christ? The spiritual gifts of prophecy, tongues, and interpretation are gifts are often considered in debates between cessationists and continuationists, but seldom in the full context of 1 Corinthians. Particularly, how is Paul’s teaching on the gifts in … Read more
In a culture that tends to view shame as neither helpful nor productive (Brené Brown, “Shame vs. Guilt,” 2013), Christians have rightly responded in defense of shame (Te-Li Lau, Defending Shame, 2020). Lau correctly asserts that Paul used shame for the sake of the moral formation of his readers, even encouraging the church to disassociate … Read more
John’s Gospel is a beacon of uniqueness, particularly in its rendering of the prologue. Like Mark, John doesn’t start with Jesus’s birth narrative but with John the Baptist’s testimony about the historical Jesus. John sets his Gospel apart by adding a preface to John the Baptist’s testimony. With few but profound words, before introducing the … Read more
There are only three characters in the Hebrew Bible who are said to be clothed by the spirit (of YHWH/God; וְר֣וּחַ לָבְשָׁ֗ה אֶת־): Gideon (Judg 6:34), Amasai (1 Chr 12:19 [HB]), and Zechariah (2 Chr 24:20). In contrast to the protracted narrative of Gideon (Judges 6:11-8:35), for Amasai and Zechariah we seem to have little … Read more
How do we come to know God truly as he is in himself? Christians confess, almost universally, that Holy Scripture is the cognitive foundation of this metaphysical knowledge. Yet a range of views exists on how this metaphysical, or theological, knowledge of God is accessed in the Bible’s diverse, literary material. The contemporary effort to … Read more
Biblical authors frequently quote psalms referring to the eschatological king and apply them to the people of God. This paper argues the prophets and apostles do not misappropriate the text in making these applications. Rather, this paper attempts to prove the psalms feature two layers of meaning. The first layer relates to the eschatological king. … Read more
In the fourth century, Eusebius of Caesarea described a second-century apology that was widely circulated and well-known in his day: “Aristides, a believer earnestly devoted to our religion, left… an apology for the faith addressed to Hadrian.” For centuries, the Apologia of Aristides was thought to have been lost. In 1878, Lazarist monks discovered and … Read more