Recently published on P.OST

According to Douglas Moo, the theological or conceptual “framework within which Paul expresses his key ideas in Romans can be called salvation history” (D. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 1996, 25). What he means by this is that “God has accomplished redemption as part of a historical process. God’s work in Christ is the center of history, the point from which both past and future must… (Read more...)

I have been reading Tom Wright’s Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive Into Paul’s Greatest Letter (2023), wondering whether I should make it recommended reading for a course on Romans. I probably will but with caveats.My view is that Wright’s assessment of the traditional Protestant reading as narrowly individualistic is correct but he overshoots the heart of Paul’s… (Read more...)

I had a conversation last week with an old friend, Scott Lencke, about what I have been calling a “narrative-historical” approach to the reading of the Bible and of the New Testament in particular. Scott has made it available on his new podcast, or you can watch the whole thing on YouTube.He says that the approach will be a “great challenge to our typical evangelical approach, but one I think is… (Read more...)

Nothing much to see here, just a footnote to my argument about Jesus being “in the form of a god,” but some people may find it interesting.The opening clause of the famous encomium celebrating the strange career of Jesus in Philippians 2:6-11 is usually translated “being in the form of God.” This is sometimes tendentiously paraphrased: “in the form and unchanging essence of God” (… (Read more...)

From my limited perspective (other limited perspectives are available), it appears that the church in the West is changing or being changed quite dramatically. It is adapting to a marginalised and diminished presence by re-imagining the manner of its engagement with the world around it. We are concerned less with the quantity of church community than with its quality. Boundaries… (Read more...)