Why was Jesus so polite to the centurion and so rude to the Canaanite woman?

The story of the Canaanite woman (Matt. 15:21-28; cf. Mk. 7:24-30) has been going round in my head the last few days, partly because I have been marking a number of undergraduate essays comparing the two versions of the episode, partly because I happened across quite a good podcast in which Trevin Wax and Brandon Smith ask why Jesus called the woman a dog. I wonder if there isn’t, in Matthew’s telling of the story, a rather mundane and pragmatic explanation of the disturbing episode.

Read time: 7 minutes

Stephen Burnhope: Atonement and the New Perspective

One of the main arguments that I have been putting forward on this site is that modern evangelicalism needs to shift its weight from the rickety stool of theology or dogmatics, before it collapses, to the much more solid and reliable stool of history. What would this mean for how we understand things? First, we would read the New Testament as a narrative testimony to the historical experience and perspective of a messianic Jewish movement in the first century. Secondly, we would determine the present life and mission of the church not dogmatically—as though a fuzzy, grainy, blotchy and easily misinterpreted snapshot of the first century church could reasonably serve as a template throughout the rest of human history—but as an extension of that narrative.

Read time: 11 minutes

Why traditional eschatology is a failure of nerve

I want to begin the new year by exhorting “evangelicals”—that is, by my definition, Christians who think that the Bible is to be taken seriously—to get to grips with eschatology. Why not? It’s as good a time as any to pause and reflect on where things are going.

The traditional view is that the events associated with the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds have not yet happened—even though Jesus seemed confident that his parousia would take place within the lifetime of at least some of his followers (Matt. 16:28; 23:36; 24:34; Mk. 8:38; 9:1; 13:30; Lk. 9:27; 21:32). We are still waiting. I think we are waiting in vain. Worse than that, I suggest that by constantly deferring the “end” we are not engaging with the present, and for that reason we are missing the whole point of New Testament eschatology.

Read time: 7 minutes

When exactly did the Word become flesh?

In the beginning, which may have been either the beginning of creation or the beginning of new creation, or both, the Word was with God, and the Word in some sense was God. This is John’s reworking of a familiar Jewish Wisdom motif, probably with a view to linking it with the prevalent Hellenistic idea that the logos , as “word” or “reason”, underpins reality. All things were made through this divine Word or Wisdom; in it was life, and the life was the light of humanity. This Word-Wisdom-life-light shines in the darkness; it was not extinguished by the dark events that are about to be described in the ensuing Gospel narrative.

Read time: 5 minutes

Ignorance about the ignorance of the Son

Carlton Wynne is assistant professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary and, therefore, not surprisingly believes that “as the eternal Son of the Father, Jesus Christ possesses the fullness of deity, including the attribute of omniscience”. But how are we to reconcile this dogma, he asks, with Jesus’ claim to ignorance in Matthew 24:36 (cf. Mk. 13:32): “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only”? Jesus knows for a fact that he will judge the nations (cf. Matt. 25:31-34), but he hasn’t been told when.

Wynne’s solution is that “two completely different natures… are united in the one Son of God”—an immutable divine nature, which has no need to learn anything, and a mutable human nature, which was bound to grow and learn. So it can be said that, as a man, Jesus “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and man” (Lk. 2:52).

Read time: 4 minutes

Why won’t there be marriage in the resurrection?

What are we to make of Jesus’ saying that in the resurrection people will not marry or be given in marriage? I’ve been looking at Robert Song’s argument for covenant partnerships for gay and lesbian people in his book Covenant and Calling: Towards a Theology of Same-Sex Relationships. Marriage is instituted, he says, “to deal with the problem that people die”. Resurrected people will not die, so the institution of marriage becomes redundant. “Where there is resurrection, there is no death; where there is no death, there is no need for birth; where there is no birth, there is no need for marriage.”

Read time: 6 minutes

Evangelicals and the narrative-historical method: three questions

I am arguing on this site for a major shift in the way that the church reads the New Testament and presents its significant content. Most churches today start from a theological tradition and, wittingly or otherwise, read the New Testament for the purpose of explaining, elaborating upon and defending that tradition. In the case of evangelicals the tradition is multi-faceted: it might take the shape of the formulations of classical patristic orthodoxy or Reformed dogmatics or nineteenth century pietism or modern salvationism. These theological lenses, however, in their different ways, invariably distort the content of the New Testament: they obscure the political significance of Jesus, they blank out the historical context, they over-personalise the language of faith, they diminish the apocalyptic dimension, and so on.

Read time: 9 minutes