What we call “Christianity” is the religion of the formerly Christian West. It survives residually in both the historic and modern churches, and globally as a result of both historic and modern missionary expansion. It is defined by diverse, overlapping systems of belief and practice, which… (
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At the Communitas staff conference in Malaga last week, there was a lot of discussion around two related topics: human sexuality and the surprising interest shown by young people in Christianity in the last few years, which sometimes goes under the label “quiet revival.”On the flight back, I… (
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We will be doing some sessions on Philippians at the Communitas staff conference in Malaga next week. Here, by way of preparation, is a quick explanatory synopsis of the letter as a historical document, by which I mean that it emphasises the restricted outlook and experience of Paul and of… (
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I have long held the view that Babylon the great in Revelation 17-18 is the city of Rome as the capital of a decadent imperial power. Jason Staples used to think the same, but in a recent Substack post he explains why he has adopted the minority position that the lurid and dissolute woman depicted… (
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This is a half-baked response to someone who got in touch with some questions after reading Why the missional church must also be prophetic:One thing I’ve noticed, not only in your writing but across much of the missional literature I read, is that the insights can often feel quite abstract or… (
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Given the importance that the Shema would acquire for Jewish religious practice in the rabbinic period and has had for christology among Pauline scholars in the last thirty years, it is remarkable that it is so rarely quoted or discussed, on its own terms, in the literature of second temple Judaism… (
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The publication of a reconstructed “Hymn of Babylon” has been in the news. The text of the hymn has been assembled from a number of cuneiform tablets from the Sippar library with the help of AI. The hymn is incomplete; it would have been about 250 lines in length, roughly two-thirds has been… (
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This is rewrite of a post from last year just to update the details, with some changes of perspective and emphasis. I’ll be honest. It’s in part a sneaky—but not unprincipled—way to get people to consider signing up for one or other of the programmes and projects that I’m involved in. Other… (
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There seems to be a lot of talk these days about reversing the decline of the West as a formerly Christian civilisation. Here’s an example that I happened to come across. The aim of the UK-based Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) is “to draw on our moral, cultural, economic, and spiritual… (
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We don’t talk a lot about the “second death” in church, I know. At least, not in our church. I ended up down this rabbit hole—really, a small dead-end off the sprawling warren of New Testament apocalyptic thought—thanks to some helpful comments about the use of the expression in the Aramaic Targums… (
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When Paul says that God put forward the death of Jesus as—in whatever sense—an “atonement” (Rom. 3:25), he has in mind specifically the salvation of the Jews. He is talking to Jews here, who are subject to the wrath of God (3:1-8); he has catalogued an extensive scriptural indictment … (
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The Christ encomium in Philippians 2:6-11 is usually divided into two parts: humbling in 2:6-8 and exaltation in 2:9-11. But here I want to suggest that once it has become apparent to onlooking Greeks that Christ Jesus, for all his god-like wisdom and powers, was human, no more remarkable than a… (
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The last time I wrote about Crispin Fletcher-Louis’ “monster book” The Divine Heartset: Paul’s Philippians Christ Hymn, Metaphysical Affections, and Civic Virtues I got a ticking off for not having read the whole book. I have since ordered the whole book—all 954 pages of it—but it… (
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There are three main interpretive paradigms for understanding Paul’s writings available today within mainstream, predominantly Protestant, scholarship. The diagram below names the paradigms, briefly notes the defining characteristics, and mentions some of the major exponents. It also highlights the… (
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Here is the question. When Paul says, “for us one God the Father…, and one Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:6), are the terms “God… Lord” between them a reference to the shemaʿ: “Hear, Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 8:6 LXX*)?It has become a stock argument of those holding… (
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The NIV is unusual in translating en morphēi theou hyparchōn in Philippians 2:6 as “being in very nature God,” but the translation nevertheless reflects a widespread and longstanding assumption that to be “in the form of God” means to share in his nature or essence or being.Scholars know… (
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My argument about the other encomium, in Colossians 1:15-20, is that it makes Christ Jesus the beginning of a new political-religious order, in which government in heaven and government on earth have been reconciled.1Hitherto the rule of God and rule over the nations of the Greek-Roman… (
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Crispin Fletcher-Louis has written a monster book—nearly a thousand pages—about the Christ encomium in Philippians 2:6-11: The Divine Heartset: Paul’s Philippians Christ Hymn, Metaphysical Affections, and Civic Virtues (Wipf & Stock, 2023). About 20% is available on Google Books… (
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In his book Messianic High Christology: New Testament Variants of Second Temple Judaism (2021), Ruben Bühner sets out to demonstrate that a high christology is compatible with Jewish messianism. The title says it all. The title may turn out to be a contradiction in terms.Chapter one looks… (
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In traditional Reformed interpretation, Romans 12:1-15:7 is regarded simply as a piece of Christian parenesis—that is, practical and ethical instruction or exhortation to be followed in all times, in all places. The letter tends to get sectioned thematically: justification by faith in the… (
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