Episode: Michael Rhodes joins Matt L and Dru to discuss the Bible's justice-oriented discipleship and its significance for the church today. We explore the importance of Deuteronomy for understanding biblical concepts of justice, including the triennial tithe, 7th year release of debts and slaves, and formative feasting. Discussion also takes us into places like the books of Leviticus, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Qoheleth, and the Gospel of John. And, of course, we get a first-hand report from an American in New Zealand. Listen in and pick up a copy of Just Discipleship (IVP Academic).

Guest: Dr. Michael Rhodes is Lecturer in Old Testament at Carey Baptist College in New Zealand. He's the author of Formative Feasting (Peter Lang), Practicing the King's Economy (Baker; co-authored with Robby Holt), and the book we're discussing today, Just Discipleship: Biblical Justice in an Unjust World (IVP Academic). He also co-edited a book called Reparations and the Theological Disciplines (Lexington) and has another book called Justice Unto Victory under contract with IVP. For more on Michael's writing and interests, see his faculty page.

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Episode: How did Paul understand time? Was it an adaptation of the "two ages" of Judaism? Is there really an "already-not-yet" in Paul's letters? To the last two questions, Ann Jervis answers an emphatic "no." Join Erin and Ann Jervis for a conversation about Ann's groundbreaking book, Paul and Time, to hear Ann's unique take on how Christ relates to time in Paul's letters, and how those in Christ thus relate to time. by virtue of being joined together with him.

Guest (from the publisher's website): L. Ann Jervis (ThD, Wycliffe College) is emerita professor of New Testament at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, in Toronto, Canada. She is a member of the Centre for Ethics at Trinity College, University of Toronto, and a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey. She has served on various editorial boards, including Journal of Biblical Literature and New Testament Studies. Jervis is author of The Heart of the Gospel, The Purpose of Romans, a commentary on Galatians, and Paul and Time (Baker Academic). She is also a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada.

Book (from the Baker Academic website): Standard interpretations are that Paul modified his inherited Jewish apocalyptic sequential two-age temporality. Paul solved the conundrum of Christ’s resurrection occurring without the resurrection of the righteous by asserting that the ages are not sequential but rather that they overlap. Believers live in already-not yet temporality.

In this groundbreaking book, Ann Jervis instead proposes that Paul thought not in terms of two ages but in terms of life in this age or life in Christ. Humans apart from Christ live in this age, whereas believers live entirely in the temporality of Christ.

Christ’s temporality, like God’s, is time in which change occurs, at least between Christ and God and creation. Their temporality is tensed, but the tenses are nonsequential. The past is in their present, as is the future. However, this is not a changeless now but a now in which change occurs (though not in the way that human chronological time perceives change). Those joined to Christ live Christ’s temporality while also living chronological time.

In clear writing, Jervis engages both philosophical and traditional biblical understandings of time. Her inquiry is motivated and informed by the long-standing recognition of the centrality of union with Christ for Paul. Jervis points out that union with Christ has significant temporal implications.

Living Christ’s time transforms believers’ suffering, sinning, and physical dying. While in the present evil age these are instruments purposed for destruction, in Christ they are transformed in service of God’s life. Living Christ’s time also changes the significance of the eschaton. It is less important to those in Christ than it is for creation, for those joined to the One over whom death has no dominion are already released from bondage to corruption.

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Episode: In this episode Chris Tilling interviews Marty Folsom about his second volume in the series, Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone (Vol. 2 - The Doctrine of God) (Zondervan Academic).

What is it about Barth’s Church Dogmatics that is considered so important? What’s the “big deal”? And how to approach such a massive set of volumes? How to navigate around the highways and byways of this text that sprawls almost 8,500 pages and 6,000,000 words? How to avoid misunderstanding? Marty Folsom has begun penning a “Church Dogmatics for Everyone”, which sets out, first in broad brush strokes and then in more detail, the first volume of Barth’s important project. Chris Tilling talks with the author about the background of this project, what Marty Folsom hopes to achieve and why the Church Dogmatics.

Guest: Marty Folsom has been Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies for 30 years in New Zealand and Seattle. He is most famous for his “Face to Face” trilogy on relational theology, which emphasises “personal relationship”. Apart from authoring numerous articles, he has also been a therapist for 24 years. Today we discuss his new book, Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics for Everyone (Vol. 2 - The Doctrine of God) (Zondervan Academic), with contributions from Chris Tilling, David Guretzki, Earl Palmer, Wyatt Houtz, Andrew Howie, James Houston, Ross Hastings, and Jeremy Begbie. This is the second volume of six.

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If you enjoyed this episode ... have a listen to our interview with Marty about Volume 1.