Category: New Testament Canon

Seeing What We Want to See: Reflections on the Saga of the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife

While Narnia is a land filled with magic—where animals can talk and even sing—not all people can hear them.  In C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew we learn that Uncle Andrew is one of those people. When the animals speak to him, Uncle Andrew hears only animal sounds. Just noise, not words.

Why? He is closed to the idea of a magical world. He assumes (in his worldview) that animals are nothing but dumb creatures. Thus, when Aslan sings, Uncle Andrew is able to rationalize it away: “‘Of course, it can’t really have been singing,’ he thought, ‘I must have imagined it. I’ve been letting my nerves get out of order. … Continue reading...

Were the Church Fathers Inspired in the Same Way as Scripture? A Preview of the Sizemore Lectures at Midwestern Seminary

A number of years ago, Everett Kalin wrote a well-known doctoral dissertation arguing that the early church fathers did not see inspiration as something that was uniquely true of canonical books.  Why?  Because, according to Kalin, the early Church Fathers saw their own writings as inspired.   Ever since, a number of scholars have repeated this claim (Sundberg, Allert, MacDonald, et al.), insisting that the early fathers saw nothing distinctive about the NT writings as compared to writings being produced in their own time period.

Well, despite the popularity of this position, I find it to be highly problematic. Indeed, my rebuttal will be the topic for the Sizemore Lectures this … Continue reading...

Off to San Diego for the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society

Next week, I head to beautiful San Diego for the 71st Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, the largest gathering of evangelical scholars in the world. The theme this year is “Christ in All Scripture.”

This year I will be delivering the presidential address at the Thursday night banquet. The title of my lecture is “2 Peter 3:2, the Apostolate and a Bi-Covenantal Canon.”  Yes, I know. Not that exciting. But, that’s just what we scholars do…

For more exciting lectures, you may want to check out the three plenary speakers we have lined up:  Greg Beale (Westminster Seminary), Jeannine Brown (Bethel Seminary), and Stephen Wellum (Southern Baptist … Continue reading...