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The Lutheran and Reformed traditions share a common root in the Protestant Reformation, but the relationship has been something of a sibling rivalry. The debates were perhaps most acrimonious in the 16th and 17th centuries, but the present climate could be described as cold and isolated. On the Reformed side at least, theologians rarely engage … Read more
Determining appropriate and necessary application from OT narratives challenges the best of modern expositors. One’s hermeneutical presuppositions, including the place of the author, text, and reader, ground the role of discerning theology in narrative and anticipating the necessary connection to Christ, and then how the text should impact our lives before we unfold it to … Read more
Amidst the current lack of literature in the English-speaking world concerning Christianity in Taiwan, the present paper seeks to assess to what extent there truly is a distinctive “Global” (i.e., “contextualized”) expression of Evangelicalism that is unique to Taiwan—this, in contradistinction to other forms of contextualized theologies in Taiwan that are found more within denominations … Read more
While it has been notoriously difficult to pinpoint the center of 1 Corinthians among commentators, as Malcom states, “There is broad agreement that certain topics are crucial. The three that are repeatedly mentioned in recent scholarship are: the cross, holiness, and unity” (Matthew R. Malcolm, “The Structure and Theme of First Corinthians in Recent Scholarship,” … Read more
In the history of interpreting John, scholars like Bultmann and Kyser, among others, have rejected the notion that John was concerned with the ordinance (or sacrament) of baptism, especially in Jesus’ instruction to Nicodemus to be “born of water and the Spirit” in John 3:3-5. However, in addition to considering the context of John’s audience, … Read more
The last fifteen years has seen a renewed interest in scholarship in the faithfulness of Jesus in the Letter to the Hebrews. Many of the monographs written on this subject include analyses of Hebrews 2 and Hebrews 5, along with other key pericopes. These two chapters also contain references by the writer of Hebrews to … Read more
1 Corinthians 15:8 represents the single occurrence of the Greek trauma root in Paul’s letters, ektrōma. This term normally denotes a stillbirth or miscarriage, and Paul’s appropriation of such an unsettling metaphor to describe himself has proven difficult to account for. Further complicating this self-reference is the experience Paul is attempting to portray, Christ’s appearance … Read more
Jesus makes clear in Revelation that works will affect everyone’s eternal experience, whether bound for the new earth or the lake of fire. Works is one of the dominant themes in Revelation and is developed by Jesus through His proclamations as well as commentary on the attitudes of saints and earth dwellers. It is introduced … Read more
Richard Bauckham, N. T. Wright, and Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, among others, have argued that Paul’s confession of “one God, the Father . . . and one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:6) includes both the Father and Jesus Christ within the Shema, the Jewish confession of monotheism (Deut. 6:4). This interpretation has met resistance … Read more
Discussions of the exegesis of John 1:1c, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, commonly focus on the nonuse of the article with the predicate noun θεός. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what significance, if any, the nonuse of the article might have by examining the three parallel versions (and textual variants) of Christ’s … Read more