Engaging Conversations on Bible and Theology
Episodes
Tuesday Mar 21, 2017
Tuesday Mar 21, 2017
Episode: What's the verdict? Kevin J. Vanhoozer presents the case and renders a judgment. It is easy to charge the Protestant Reformation with the crime of fracturing the unity of the church. Others have added skepticism and secularization to the list of misdeeds. In Biblical Authority After Babel, Vanhoozer explores these common criticisms of the Protestant Reformation--and finds them wanting.
OnScript host Matthew W. Bates and Kevin discuss a wide variety of topics: whether Kevin is truly an anarchist, what motivates Kevin's research, the interaction of grace and nature, "faith" in philosophy and theology, models for how Scripture and tradition relate, and the keys of the kingdom as this relates to church authority. These matters are central to the gospel and salvation!
Guest: Kevin Vanhoozer is currently Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He was formerly Blanchard Professor of Theology at Wheaton College and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. He has written numerous books, including several award winning publications: Is There a Meaning in this Text? (Zondervan, 1998; Christianity Today Book Award, 1999) and The Drama of Doctrine (Westminster John Knox, 2005; Christianity Today Best Theology Book of the Year, 2006).
Book: Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Biblical Authority After Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity (Brazos, 2016). In recent years, notable scholars have argued that the Protestant Reformation unleashed interpretive anarchy on the church. Is it time to consider the Reformation to be a 500-year experiment gone wrong? World-renowned evangelical theologian Kevin Vanhoozer thinks not. While he sees recent critiques as legitimate, he argues that retrieving the Reformation's core principles offers an answer to critics of Protestant biblical interpretation. He offers a positive assessment of the Reformation, showing how a retrieval of "mere Protestant Christianity" has the potential to reform contemporary Christian belief and practice. This provocative response and statement from a top theologian is accessibly written for pastors and church leaders..
The OnScript Quip (our review): Schism. Skepticism. Secularization. Due to these crimes the case against the Protestant Reformation appears overwhelming. Here world-class theologian Kevin Vanhoozer acts as an expert trial lawyer. He sifts the evidence, weighs causes, and presents his case in a winning fashion. The table-turning verdict: "Not guilty!" -- Matthew W. Bates, Quincy University, OnScript
Monday Mar 06, 2017
Monday Mar 06, 2017
Episode: Matt L. and J. Daniel Kirk discuss the humanity of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, and the idea that Jesus' humanity meant much more than the fact that he could eat, sleep, and become exhausted. Daniel argues that an unintended consequence of the studies that proffer a divine Christology is an underdeveloped human Christology. Matt and Daniel discuss 'idealized human figures' in early Judaism, several possible objections to Daniel's thesis that the Gospels don't offer a divine Christology, and much more that can be found in the 600 and some odd pages of A Man Attested by God: The Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels (Eerdmans, 2016).
Guest: Daniel is the author of Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God (Eerdmans, 2008), Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? A Narrative Approach to the Problem of Pauline Christianity (Baker, 2012), and now A Man Attested by God: The Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels (Eerdmans, 2016). He is also an avid blogger at Storied Theology, and hosts his own podcast called The Lectiocast, which follows the common lectionary to help ministers prepare for their upcoming sermons. Daniel is also the Newbigin Fellowship Pastoral Director at the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco.
Book: In A Man Attested by God J. R. Daniel Kirk presents a comprehensive defense of the thesis that the Synoptic Gospels present Jesus not as divine but as an idealized human figure. Counterbalancing the recent trend toward early high Christology in such scholars as Richard Bauckham, Simon Gathercole, and Richard Hays, Kirk here thoroughly unpacks the humanity of Jesus as understood by Gospel writers whose language is rooted in the religious and literary context of early Judaism. Without dismissing divine Christologies out of hand, Kirk argues that idealized human Christology is the best way to read the Synoptic Gospels, and he explores Jesus as exorcist and miracle worker within the framework of his humanity. (from the eerdmans.com website).