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The New Testament in Color (Part 1) with Esau McCaulley

David Capes  

Joining me today is Esau McCauley, Associate Professor of New Testament and Public Theology at  Wheaton College. He worked with NT Wright, our friend from the University of St Andrews.

David Capes  

Welcome. We’re so glad that you’re here. 

Esau McCaulley  

Oh, thank you. Happy to be here. I’m enjoying it, it’s a beautiful, beautiful space. 

David Capes  

Yes and you’ve had a chance to enjoy our Yarnton property.

Esau McCaulley  

Yes! How many people have done both? I’ve done double duty. 

David Capes  

You are twice blessed. 

Esau McCaulley  

I have to go back once the library is finished there, so I can see it fully operational.

David Capes  

We’re going to be talking about your commentary that you led. It’s a great project, and it’s called the New Testament in Color: A Multiethnic Bible Commentary. Tell us about this project.

Esau McCaulley  

My first book looked at the contributions of the African American church to understanding Christianity in America, and the distinctive ways in which African Americans have read the Bible and made sense of it. And so, when I wrote that book, it was supposed to be a part one of a two part series. But a lot of people bought the first book. And then wanted to talk about it, some people attacked it, so you’ve got to defend it. So it took longer to help people understand what I did and didn’t mean by African American biblical interpretation. Maybe we’ll talk about that for a second to help everyone understand New Testament in Color.

David Capes  

That was one of my questions down the way. Let’s talk a little bit about that, because you wrote a chapter on that here.

Esau McCaulley  

Yes, when we think about African American biblical interpretation, we could get this idea that skin color creates interpretations of the Bible. Like there’s something in the melanin that makes you a magical Bible interpreter. That’s not what I mean at all. What I mean is the color of your skin impacts the way that you’re treated, and when you’re treated a certain way, it raises certain kinds of questions that you then go to the Bible and answer. A good example is a lot of African Americans are told that Christianity is a white man’s religion. So, we have to show from the Bible that Christianity isn’t a white man’s religion. And I doubt that most pastors in white churches have had people come and say, Christianity is the black man’s religion, prove to me that it isn’t. So the questions that are raised in an African American context aren’t the same questions that are raised in other contexts. 

The other example that I use, is say it’s 1954 and Brown v. Board of Education has just passed. Now African Americans are thinking through the questions of how we’re going to be Christians in this new context. Now consider, it’s also 1954 but it’s a white pro-segregation congregation, and the pastor has  to stand up and make the case from the Bible. Different context produces different questions. Now you still turn into the Bible for answers. The Bible is still the authority, but the kinds of questions that you ask are influenced by your context. Then sometimes because of your context, you ask questions that lead to insights that people might not otherwise notice.

Another example that I give is say you’re getting ready to teach a youth group, and you’re looking through the Bible. You’re thinking, what’s a good message to say to 15-year-olds. And because 15-year-olds are in your head, you see exactly how this part in Paul, will speak exactly to the experiences of a 15 or 16 year olds. Those insights are there, but you didn’t notice them, because normally you think about preaching to adults. In actuality, the people who you imagine when you read the Bible influence the kinds of things that you notice, and it influences the kinds of things that you bring out of the text. So if we only have one group of people in mind when we interpret the Bible, it leads to the possibility that we don’t see things that are there. I’m not talking about distorted meanings. I’m talking about motivated readings, the things that you notice because you’re attending to them based upon your experiences. 

Maybe another example of this, not to belabor the point. Let’s say you’re a woman, and you’re told that women are intellectually inferior. You ask the question what does the Bible actually say about women. And as a woman, you might be really motivated to get this right, because this matters for who you are. Motivated readings aren’t necessarily bad, sometimes they can help us or sometimes they can hinder us. Motivated readings are a fact of reality, and African Americans in the United States have had unique experiences that have required us to answer questions that other communities haven’t. And there’s a deposit of reflections that have arisen from a community that we call the black church, that have formed habits of reading. And so that’s what we call African American biblical interpretation. Not skin color producing readings, but skin color producing experiences that we then bring to the text that influence our reading. 

If that is true of African Americans, it’s also true of people from other cultures. We thought what happens if you bring different cultures together to create a commentary that itself reflects what the church is supposed to be, people from every tribe, tongue and nation, reading the Bible together to make sense of it. The New Testament in Color is black, white, Asian and Latino scholars who are together working on a commentary on the New Testament. Not that we all did each one individually, but each person wrote a commentary on a particular book. We have Native American peoples, First Nations indigenous peoples, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and white scholars. We wanted to focus on North American minorities. We saw things like the Asian Bible Commentary and others that were more Bible commentaries looking at evangelicalism, listening to the voice of the global church. And we said, it’s great to listen to the global church through the African Bible Commentary, the Asian Bible Commentary. These things are important, but what about the ethnic minorities in our midst? What we wanted to do was to create something that brought together the ethnic minorities in the United States along with the majority culture, because white is a culture, and bring them together to create a commentary.

David Capes  

There are white scholars here, as well as black scholars. Gene Green, Michael Gorman, Amy peeler is one of the editors. Janette Oak. Tell us about Janet.

Esau McCaulley  

Dr. Oak is an Asian American scholar at Fuller Seminary. She focuses on I & II Peter. She’s also working on a commentary right now on all three letters of John. She is an accomplished scholar, Associate Professor at Fuller. She’s published tons of stuff. Amy peeler is a colleague at Wheaton. We love Wheaton. Amy is a Hebrews scholar, and she also deals a lot with gender, and is helping us understand how the Bible describes women and the gifts that God has given to women and how the church needs to embrace the entire body of Christ to effective ministry. She’s a great New Testament scholar. She did a commentary on Hebrews. Her commentary on Hebrews just came out sometime recently. There’s Osvaldo Padilla. He’s a Latino scholar at Beeson Divinity School, which is in Alabama, you know, God’s country! He is working on the commentary on the Pastorals. 

All of them are accomplished scholars. We wanted three things from the people who participated. One, we wanted them to affirm that Scripture is the final authority for Christians, for faith and practice. Although we agree to disagree on a lot of stuff, we wanted to say we agree on the Bible. The second thing we said was we wanted the creeds to function as the consensus around Christian belief as well. So the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed. We said, there’s a bunch of denominations here and we think the creeds are a good summary of what it means to be a Christian. So If you say you’re pro-creed, and you say you like the Bible, you could be in the commentary. Beyond that, we gave people freedom. We also said we didn’t want people to speak for their entire ethnicity. I’m not speaking for black people, but I’m a black person speaking from that perspective. This is not the black view on A, B and C. It’s more of a person who’s being unapologetically themselves in the interpretive process.

David Capes  

Let’s talk a little bit about your own journey growing up in Alabama. Your own experiences. You were born in the 70’s I I take it. 

Esau McCaulley  

I like to call myself a child of the 70s. I was born in October of 1979. I’ve lived in the 70s, the 80s, the 90’s to 2000’s, the 2010’s and the 2020’s.

David Capes  

Six decades. Wow. It’s you were barely in the. 70s.

Esau McCaulley  

That month and a half in the 70s is a wild time.

David Capes  

Talk about your journey toward faith. 

Esau McCaulley  

I think that a lot of the times I talk more about decisions for Jesus rather than a decision for Jesus. I feel like a significant part of my spiritual journey is, over time, giving over more and more of my life to God. Because I was raised in a Christian home. My grandparents, on both sides of my family, were Baptist ministers. My mom was a minister. She became a minister after I did so I always say she followed me into ministry. She got ordained, a couple of years ago. We were in church every Sunday. We were kind of from a rough part of town, and so we tended towards binaries. You were either in the church or in the streets. And so I was in the church, but the levels of my piety waxed and waned over the years. And so I didn’t say it out loud to the pastor, but I’ll come to church on Sunday and if you preach a good sermon, I’m going to be a Christian that week. If you don’t, you lost me. I’ve always kept that with me, because I know what it’s like to go into church and say, if I don’t hear a word from God today I don’t know what’s going happen. 

That was most of my childhood, and I would say that for me, Christianity was in periods in my life, more of a survival mechanism. It was the way out of my neighborhood. And maybe I can say, to make a very long story short, I was a college football player, division three at the University of the South. And it was shocking to go from the poverty of my high school to college at the University of the South, where there’s so much money and so much wealth. They joked because in football we had “two a days”, where you practice twice a day. Tennessee was super hot, and I was the only person who actually ever gained weight during “two a days”. Because I never had that much food in my life. You could just go to cafeteria and eat whenever you want. I couldn’t believe it. 

But one of the things that I realized is that after I was no longer in this place where I didn’t recognize my need for God, I said, Oh, God had done what he needed to do. He got me to college, and I was in college. It was a more theologically progressive place, where I took the religion classes. They told you that none of this stuff was true, and all of the kind of stuff you hear as a stereotype of religion and higher education. It’s really good to tell a college student that God doesn’t care what you do. It wasn’t that intellectually stimulating. There were the fraternity houses down the road and the professors telling me I can do what I want. That’s a toxic mix for a college student. And I kind of drifted away from my faith for a little bit in college. Then there came this particular moment in college. 

It was Christmas break when I had a significant spiritual moment in my life. I’m home for break, and I’m back in my room, but it’s no longer mine, because when you leave our house, there’s too many people to leave an empty room. So it was my sister’s bedroom and everything’s pink now. I was listening to Etta James, like old school and Billie Holiday; this sad jazz music on this thing called Napster. If you’re a certain age, you remember when you could download illegal music before there were streaming services. I wasn’t praying or anything. I’m just listening to sad jazz music. Because I had everything that I wanted in college. I was no longer worried about what I was going to eat. I was doing well in school. I was doing well in sports. I was not praying. I was just listening to depressing jazz music because it felt like it matched my mood. 

I had this idea that I think comes from God. It was like a sentence, fully formed. What happens when you receive everything you ever wanted, but it’s not sufficient to bring you joy. And I said that has summarized my college experience. And then the answer to the question that the Spirit was, maybe you should try God and take him seriously. And so that was the spiritual transformation. But because I had been in college and I had all of the intellectual stuff taken away from me, I had to go through this process of reading myself. I had to say, I know I’ve had this experience of God, but now I had to make intellectual sense of this and that. And actually, the study to make sense of what I’d experienced spiritually led me down the road to becoming, ultimately, an academic. I began to answer those questions that I received in those courses. 

Jeannine asked me, what is it that I like doing the most? And I said, talking to students about the Bible and giving them the confidence to live their lives on the basis of each text. Because I know what it’s like to have a professor whose goal was to take that away from students. I want to give that back to students, to say we are not fools for trusting in the God who revealed these texts. And so that’s a little bit of my spiritual journey.

David Capes  

Great story. 

This is the end of part one of my interview with Esau McCaulley.  Part two is coming up next week.

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Theodicy vs. Anti-theodicy with Jahdiel Perez

This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.

Hey everybody. My name is Jahdiel Perez, and I’m an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

David Capes  

Jahdiel, welcome to The Stone Chapel Podcast. Great to see you again. 

Jahdiel Perez  

Great to see you too. Thanks for having me. 

David Capes  

Oh, this is a delight. I was deeply impressed by your presentation here, and we’ll say more about that in a few minutes. But for those who don’t know Jahdiel Perez, who are you?

Jahdiel Perez  

I’m a Guatemalan and Puerto Rican pastor’s kid that grew up in Boston. I wanted nothing to do with school. I hated school with a passion. When I was about 19 years old, I had this encounter with the writings of C. S. Lewis, and it completely changed my life. I felt like God was waking me up and inviting me to play this really intriguing game with him that I later learned was called philosophy, theology, apologetics. 

And after that moment, I just wanted to spend my life wrestling with the some of the most important questions that we can ask as human beings. And then God opened the doors to study theology at Harvard and to get my doctoral degree at Oxford University. Now in this latest stage I’ve taken up a position of Humanities and Sciences at Villanova. So, it’s just a pleasure to be with you

David Capes  

Well, having watched you teach when you were at the Lanier Theological Library, I can tell your students are very fortunate to have you, because you’re very clear. You know where you want to go with a lecture. You were here for part of a conference that we did with Amy Orr Ewing entitled C.S. Lewis and the Problem of Pain. You did a lecture to a smaller group of people who were gathered here for the Lanier Certificate in Theology and Ministry. You did a talk and called it C.S. Lewis Among Contemporary Theologians. I have retitled it Theodicy versus Anti-theodicy. In a sense, you pit the two against each other. Let’s just get into the definitions. First of all, you start by defining horrendous evil. We all sort of know the idea of evil, but what do you mean by a horrendous evil?

Jahdiel Perez  

Horrendous evil is this idea that this philosopher, Marilyn McCord Adams, introduced in 1990 and the idea was that when we talk about how God relates to suffering, we’re not talking about just ordinary suffering. We’re not talking about the kind of suffering where you have a cavity or a headache. What Adams wanted to do was to distinguish those kinds of suffering where you can point them to a greater good. Like, if you go to the dentist, it’s for health, right? The pain that you feel at the gym is for health as well. There are ways you can easily think about a good reason for suffering. 

Horrendous evil is this category of evil where it’s almost impossible to try to find or imagine a good reason why somebody could suffer like that. And she defines it as life-ruining evil. It’s a kind of suffering where you question that your life could ever be meaningful again, or that anything good could compensate for that evil. So that’s basically how she defined the category. And ever since this has been the main term that philosophers and theologians have been debating over. So now we’re not talking about evil anymore. We’re talking about horrendous evil. 

David Capes  

One of the ways that that philosophers and theologians deal with that is through an idea that you find in philosophy and theology. Theodicy is the key term. When you say theodicy, what do you mean by that? 

Jahdiel Perez  

There’s a few ways to define theodicy. It comes from these two terms, Theos and Dike, which means God and justice. I’m defending the justice of God, the nature of God in the face of suffering. So there’s this obvious tension between the magnitude of suffering and the goodness of God, right? And maybe you’ve heard of the problem of evil. The idea that, if God is all good and all powerful and morally perfect, how can he allow so much suffering? So theodicy, simply put, is a response to the problem of evil. It tries to defend the nature of God in the face of suffering.

There’s two ways to think about theodicy. One is primarily in terms of truth. I’m searching for the truth about God in the midst of suffering. Another way is, I’m searching for meaning that God can give to my suffering. Those are two different ways that the discussion goes. Some philosophers will want to debate, is theodicy true? Others will want to say, is it helpful? Does it give suffering meaning that allows us to experience it and cope better with suffering?

David Capes  

I guess it’s probably the perfect answer, if you find that it is both true and it helps you discover meaning. But now there’s this movement that is called anti-theodicy. What is anti-theodicy? 

Jahdiel Perez  

This movement really picked up steam in the middle of the past century, during the world wars, from all the carnage and all the unprecedented suffering and terror that that we experienced together. There’s a book called God after Auschwitz, and it says that you can’t look at God the same way. Before we used to imagine evil as something horrendous, but now, after two world wars, after all the carnage of the 20th century, now that it means something so much more, something so much deeper. It’s almost like we share this collective trauma that makes us look at God differently. 

So anti-theodicy wants to say this, there is no meaningful relationship between God and horrendous suffering. Their main thesis is this, that horrendous suffering is inherently meaningless, and there’s no way to redeem it. There’s no way to find meaning in it, to justify it, that the most appropriate moral response as a community and as individuals, is to reject the Theodicy. That doesn’t mean we reject God. 

It just means we reject the attempt to reconcile God with suffering. They think this is not helpful. They think there are philosophical problems with it, but the big impetus behind anti-theodicy is morality. They think it’s evil to try to impose a kind of God-given meaning to suffering if the people suffering don’t accept it. We used to think this was valid, but after the 20th century, there’s no way we can keep doing this. It’s irresponsible and sometimes harmful. 

David Capes  

That’s the idea that came across very carefully in your presentation here, that theodicy they claim, harms people. That people are harmed further by attempting to find this meaning and reconcile God with that suffering. You cite a number of people and let me just include two, because I know both. I’ve met both of John Swinton and Rowan Williams, and here’s a statement by Williams, who was Archbishop of Canterbury. 

Perhaps it is time for philosophers to look away from the theodicy. Part of the task of good theology and a candid religious philosophy is, I believe, to reacquaint us with our materiality and mortality, and part of that is the knowledge of suffering as without explanation or compensation. It is more religiously imperative to be worried about evil than to put it into a satisfactory theoretical context. 

You talk about how in theodicy, what we do is take a faraway view of it. We look at it in an abstract way, but they look at it theoretically. Comment on Williams’s ideas there.

Jahdiel Perez  

I think Rowan Williams has a really intriguing perspective on what makes theology good. Up until the anti-theodicy movement, you just assumed that if you have a theology that doesn’t answer the problem of evil, it’s a bad theology. He’s flipping the script and saying, actually, theology can do its job better, it can draw you closer to God if you don’t respond to the problem of evil, if you affirm anti-theodicy. 

The important thing to note here is that anti theodicy is not just an atheist critique of religion, but actually some theologians, very good theologians like Rowan Williams and John Swinton have said, wait, there’s an insight here that can actually help us do theology and pastoral care even better. Now, personally, as I said in my lecture, I have some questions and comments and some reservations about that, but I do think that they’re hitting onto something important. They’re trying to make us aware that when we talk about God, it has consequences. If we’re not careful, we might actually do harm to people because they’re not at the correct stage of processing their loss. My position is not, oh, they’re just all false. Let’s just throw their ideas away. I think this can serve as a very important corrective to how we do theodicy.

David Capes  

Part of what you do in this paper, and a part of what you’re working on with your broader project that I hope one day will be published in a book, is to not necessarily say, okay, anti-theodicy is completely wrong. But you say it’s mostly wrong. There are some things about it that we ought to listen to, and there are some things about it that, in fact, are wrong. And part of that is the question of, does theodicy actually harm people? You’re looking at psychological studies. Tell us a little bit about that and how that research is developing for you.

Jahdiel Perez  

My research project is trying to intervene into this debate between theodicists and anti-theodicists, primarily from a psychological perspective. I can say this because I started as a philosopher. I still am a philosopher. I absolutely love philosophy, but we’re not often aware when we are making empirical claims, a claim about the physical, observable, measurable universe. Sometimes we just like to say things about human beings, but we don’t realize that this is an empirical claim, not just a philosophical speculation. 

So my first move is, let me track the empirical claims that keep going back and forth in this debate. Instead of just philosophically debating them why don’t we look at the psychological studies? What can they tell us, if anything, about the way human beings respond to suffering and trauma? So it’s very important that I shift from horrendous evil to talking specifically about trauma and PTSD. That’s the way psychologists speak about hurt, and it’s evil. I think it’s yielded very interesting insights.

I’ve found areas where anti-theodicies are correct. They’re just absolutely correct. One of their main points is called the argument from insensitivity. It’s the idea that theodicy is inherently insensitive to people who are suffering. That there’s no time, there’s no place where you can articulate a theodicy, and it will be helpful. It’s always going to be harmful. It’s always going to be insensitive. 

I think that they take that a little too far, but they’re correct that people who are suffering from PTSD, almost universally have a common symptom called hyper-arousal. It’s hypersensitivity. Somebody who’s traumatized can get triggered at the smallest cues, at the smallest remembrance. Sometimes just the tone of your voice, sometimes just your facial expression, sometimes if you just use the wrong word, it can trigger them and remind them of the imprints of their trauma. And anti-theodicists are picking up on this. Their concern about sensitivity is exactly correct that people who have suffered horrendously and have been traumatized tend to be hypersensitive. Not just our level of sensitivity, but they tend to be hyper-aroused, hyper-sensitive. So maybe we need to be very careful with how we talk about God and how we talk about theodicy. 

In my research, I have found almost the opposite, that theodicy doesn’t just help people who are suffering, but helps even caregivers that are giving medical or therapeutic care to victims of horrendous evil. If you have some kind of meaning that you can give to suffering that’s going to make it less potentially traumatic for you. One way of defining trauma is an event that you cannot make meaning of, you cannot integrate it into the overall story of your life or your overall worldview. And insofar as that event or that suffering remains that way, remains senseless, the imprints of trauma are going to continue. They’re going to affect you physically. They’re going to affect you cognitively, psychologically, spiritually. 

But if you have a framework that can try to make meaning of suffering, even horrendous suffering, you’re more likely to be able to cope with it better. What I found so far is that some of the empirical claims in the debate are not what the anti-theodicists think. If theodicy hurts individuals, it is not necessarily because theodicy is harmful, but because those individuals are in a very particular, very specific moment of processing their loss. They’re in a very specific moment of their grief. It’s very clear that your sensibilities and your needs change depending on which stage you are at. 

So, my argument is, what if the Theodicy is harmful and theodicy is offensive at the earliest stages of grief. Of course, you don’t want to hear about God when you just lost your loved one or when you just experienced trauma. Who cares about God in those moments, right? Sometimes you don’t want to hear about it. Sometimes it’s defensive. It’s hurtful. But what the anti-theodicists think is that that’s the only stage of grief, and that if you feel that way immediately, you’re bound to feel that way 10, 20, or 30 years after the event. And psychologists have shown that’s just not the case. The way we make judgments about our meaning in life changes and can change very dramatically based on many different factors. But one of them is, which stage of grief are you in?

David Capes  

Yes, that is huge. That is fascinating. One of the things that you talk about is the fact that it is important at some stage, at some point in grief, that a person actively maintain a distancing. That it’s helpful to distance yourself and to think theoretically about that, because you said that it helps to reduce stress and anxiety and negative emotions. It reduces the blood pressure, it reduces cardiovascular activity etc. And here’s a statement that you made that I thought was interesting. That “self-immersion in stressful events can lead to maladaptive reflection, more anxiety, more worry, more saying this is catastrophic, higher blood pressure, higher cardiovascular activity. That a part of what philosophers do and theologians do is to conceive of these things Theoretically, and that it’s helpful for people who are in some stage of grief to  look at it from that perspective. Would you comment on that?

Jahdiel Perez  

This relates to another major argument of anti-theodicists and it is called the “argument from detachment”. The more you abstract away from the specific, embodied suffering, the less clearly you’ll be able to see the suffering and to evaluate it correctly. So. the further you are away, the more harmful you are going to be to someone who’s suffering. If you’re suffering, you want to know you’re not alone, right? You want people to come close to you. Maybe not to talk to you, but at least to be present. So that doesn’t make some sense. 

However, what psychologists have found is that there’s two ways of looking at any specific moment in life, especially trauma. One is from a self-immersed perspective, which uses “I” statements, which means this is happening to me right now, at this very moment. I’m reliving, reenacting the trauma. Another is from a self-distance perspective, which is trying to create some sort of psychological distance between who you are now and the you that suffered the trauma. 

What psychologists have found is that trauma is overwhelming. What it does is that it keeps you trapped in the moment. It affects the way you perceive time. So even years after the event, you might think you’re still suffering. And one of the interventions that therapists like to make is precisely to create psychological self-distancing from this event. Because if you cannot distance yourself specifically from that traumatic stress, all those factors that we mentioned, anxiety, heart rate, depression, reactivity of your heart and all these biological markers tend to increase without this kind of psychological self-distancing. 

What if the theodicy provides the kind of distance that individuals need to cope better with suffering, and this is something that I think there’s enough evidence to suggest. But what if it’s not the argument per se that helps us cope better? What if it’s just the distance from the trauma and the meaning that it can give that can help us live better with suffering? 

David Capes  

It’s a fascinating study Jahdiel. Thank you for being with us today on The Stone Chapel Podcast.

Jahdiel Perez  

I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me any time.

A Nugget of Wisdom from Jahdiel Perez  

One of my favorite sayings is that if you’re the smartest person in the room, then you’re in the wrong room. I think it’s very important to surround yourself with people that are ahead of you, that are smarter than you. I never want to be the smartest person in the room, the most spiritual person in the room. I found that every time I’ve grown in life, or anytime I’ve succeeded or have been promoted, it’s because I have mentors around me that can help me grow.

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Lord Jesus Christ, with Dan Treier

To hear the podcast click here.

Recently, David Capes was on the campus of Wheaton College in Wheaton IL.  He had the chance to sit down with Dr. Dan Treier, head of the PhD program in Biblical and Theological Studies at Wheaton College. 

Dr. Treier has written a terrific new book entitled Lord Jesus Christ in a new series by Zondervan Academic. The series is called New Studies in Dogmatics. We welcome Dan for his first appearance on The Stone Chapel Podcasts.

Who Is Dan Treier? 

Dan Treier grew up on a farm in Ohio and memorized thirteen books of the Bible in his teenage years.  Not little books mind you.  But big ones like Romans, John, Matthew and 1 Corinthians.  Dan confesses that this one discipline has been formative in his life. 

His did his PhD under Kevin VanHoozer at Trinity Evangelical Theological Seminary in Deerfield IL.  For twenty-three years he has taught Theology at Wheaton College.  He’s the author of other books, which you can find under “More Resources” below. 

Lord Jesus Christ

Like any good book, this one has been in process for several years.  It is a contemporary, reformed reading of biblical Christology. 

So Dan begins with exegesis.  He selects ten of the most important passages for Christology in the New Testament. He reads them through the church fathers, the reformation, and theological insights of the church. 

Dan writes this book for pastors, students, and anyone interested in understanding how we arrived at the Orthodox Christology of Nicea and beyond. 

Though Dan did not hear much emphasis on Christology in preaching in his early years, he is convinced that Christology is very “preachable.” 

He is concerned that many evangelical churches today have a deficient understanding of Jesus’ person and work.  When that is lacking, so many other aspects of Christian faith will be lacking as well. 

Scholars review Lord Jesus Christ

Here is what Daniel Hill of Truett Seminary, Baylor University, has to say about Dr. Treier’s book:

“Christian theology, if it is worth anything at all, must continually return to the scandalous claim that Jesus Christ is Lord. Daniel J. Treier’s Lord Jesus Christ is an outstanding and illuminating examination of Christology in light of Holy Scripture’s dramatic arc from God’s life in himself to creation’s eschatological communion with God.

Rooted in a series of characteristically brilliant theological expositions of the names of Christ, this is a book you will find yourself reading and rereading to great benefit. It is a book that will drive you to the text of Holy Writ to hear anew its affirmation of the risen Lord. One would expect nothing less from a theologian of his caliber.”

More Resources

Click here for a transcript of this podcast.

See Dan’s award winning (2020) book Introducing Evangelical Theology.

With Dr. David Lauber Dan wrote Trinitarian Theology for the Church: Scripture, Community, Worship

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here.

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AWKNG School of Theology with Karla Adcox

Recently David Capes taught a course for the AWKNG School of Theology. 

While in Jacksonville, he sat down with Karla Adcox to talk about the history and mission of the school.  In a few short years they have created some quality courses digging deeply in the Scriptures, and today they have an impressive number of students.

To hear the podcast click here.

Who is Karla Adcox? 

Karla Adcox is the President and CEO of AWKNG School of Theology.  She’s served in ministry for 17 years, but she’s always been hard-wired for business. She’s a mom, a wife, and she works with their family business as an interior designer.

What is the AWKNG School of Theology? 

The AWKNG School of Theology started in 2019 and held its first class in spring 2020.  That was the year the COVID pandemic started, and it changed the business model and delivery model radically. 

Dr. Michael Heiser founded the school.  Tragically, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about this same time.  Also, his provost Dr. John Phelps was diagnosed with another form of cancer. 

Unfortunately, Dr. Heiser died in February 2023 after a long fight.  But even in the midst of his treatments he kept creating content and working to add courses to the menu of offerings. 

Karla tells a touching story of how deeply he remained engaged despite the damage the cancer was doing to his body.  He had this clever idea of putting “Seminary on a Flash Drive.” 

What is the mission of AWKNG School of Theology?

The mission of the AWKNG School of Theology is to awaken Christians to a deeper understanding of the Bible. 

They would like to bridge the gaps between the academy and the church.  And they make getting an education as easy and inexpensive as possible.  They are creating certificates with some of their courses. 

Those courses are being taken by nearly 2000 students around the world, many in the majority world.  And they are growing quickly.

Resources

For the AWKNG School of Theology website click here.

To hear Michael Heiser’s “The Naked Bible Podcast” click here.  

For a transcript of this podcast, click here.

More resources

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics. Just click here.

What’s more, you can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library. Just click here.

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“Paul Is Derivative of Peter” with Gene Green

What follows is the transcript of a conversation I had on The Stone Chapel Podcast with Dr. Gene Green about his wonderful book, VOX PETRI. Peter, he says, is the lost boy of Christian theology, particularly with the Protestant Church.

To hear the podcast, you can go to your favorite platform or click here.

Episode 132 Vox Petri with Gene Green.

Gene Green   

I’m Gene Green. I’m Professor Emeritus of New Testament from Wheaton College and Graduate School in Illinois, and also currently adjunct professor at NACOS, the Native American Course of Studies of The United Methodist Church. 

David Capes   

Dr. Gene Green. Gene, good to see you. Welcome to the Lanier Theological Library and to the Stone Chapel Podcast.  

Gene Green 

Well, it’s a delight to be here. And it’s such a beautiful place and beautiful day here in Houston, Texas. And I’m grateful for the weather. 

David Capes   

Well it’s cooler than usual, but I’m sorry.  

Gene Green 

I brought the weather f. Blustery.  

David Capes 

The Lanier Library is a delightful place. I know you haven’t seen much of it. But after this weekend, you’re here for a lecture weekend. Hopefully, you’ll get a chance to see a little bit of all of it.  

Gene Green   

Well, I hope so. And the library is just a beautiful place a marvelous collection of books. And I’m sure that many many scholars are wanting to come here if they haven’t already come to do some research. And may I say probably they’d want to ride the small gauge train around the property as well.  

David Capes   

So, for those who don’t know, who is Gene Green?  

Gene Green   

Well, I’m a New Testament prof.  Taught for about 13 years in Latin America and the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. I spent about 24 years at Wheaton College, teaching New Testament and have done some academic administration—crossed over to the dark side of the academy. But my real joy is being with students and teaching and writing, to be able to think through in fresh ways, some issues in Scripture and theology. It’s been quite a joy. The experience in Latin America brought me pretty deep into the conversation with our brothers and sisters who are developing Latin American theologies, and that was extremely enriching. I have had the honor of working not only with Latin Americans, but also women and men from across the globe, from Africa, Asia, Latin America, as well as in indigenous communities and listening to the theological conversation. This cutting edge conversation, Justo Gonzalez said, is a macro-reformation in Christian theology that’s happening around the globe.  

David Capes   

And it’s really exciting.  

Gene Green   

It really, really is, as our brothers and sisters are bringing us fresh and faithful visions of the faith that are enriching us all, not only for their communities, but for all Christians, every place. And here in North America, we need to be listening to them as we listen to our brothers, like Peter. And as he’s developing theologically, in his context, also, we’re seeing tremendous developments in these various regions of the world. So, that’s what I’ve been up to. Currently, I’m writing a commentary on Acts for the Tyndale series, and just having a great time.  

David Capes   

Good. Well, we’re so pleased that you’re here. We’re here today to talk about your book that was published a couple of years back, called Vox Petri, A Theology of Peter, foreword by Michael Gorman, a good friend of ours. But “Vox Petri”, “the voice of Peter,” is that a good translation? 

Gene Green   

Yeah, his voice that said, we use the title Vox Petri to  talk about the way that the New Testament gives us the, not the ipsissimia verba, the exact words of Peter, but the voice of Peter. Peter is always mediated to us in the various witnesses in the New Testament. So, there are others that are managing his voice. So, it’s the voice of Peter, but I think we have a faithful picture of who Peter is. But my concern has been over the years with the way that the New Testament presents the theology of Peter. And we have to remember that Peter was the Rock, and ‘upon this rock, I’ll build my church’.  

David Capes   

I would love to have some sort of a study done with Protestant ministers, to say how many of you are preaching on Peter. I bet not too many. I mean, we’re “all in” for Paul. We’re sort of “all in” for Paul. And maybe the Gospels. But there’s a huge part of the New Testament that we stay away from, I’m afraid, some of that’s the reaction to the Catholicism in terms of how they view Peter, right? We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to go that far. So, in a way we play him down.  

Gene Green   

We do and, in the book, ‘Vox Petri, Theology of Peter,’ I start off by talking about Peter being the lost boy of Christian theology and we’ve lost him, we lost him in the Reformation. We think, well, Protestants, we’ve got Paul and Roman Catholics have Peter, we’ve lost him in the pulpit. When you think about the preaching we’ve heard about Peter, you know, he’s the disciple who fails and is restored. you know, he rejects the idea of the cross. Jesus rebukes him for that, he denies the Lord, he walks on water and he sinks. He and Paul have a bit of conflict in Antioch. And we think about him as the failed but then restored disciple, so we lose him in the pulpit, as a theological figure, we’ve lost him to critical scholarship.  

Our colleagues who do not believe that you can hear or reconstruct a theology of Peter from the New Testament sayt all we have are images of Peter, instead of the authentic voice of Peter, the authentic theology of Peter. So, the problem with Petrine and studies is very similar to Jesus studies, where you bifurcate between in Jesus studies—the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith—with the Christ of faith being the invention of the church. Well a similar thing happens in Petrine studies. Now, you have the Simon of history. And then the Peter of faith. And most who work on Peter say, really, all we’ve got are just images of Peter, but not Peter himself. And my argument has been that no, the Simon of history is the Peter of faith, and we can hear him. We can hear him in the New Testament.  

David Capes   

Yeah, and I love the way you bring in the Gospel of Mark, at a very early part. Tell us a little bit about that. Why Peter is not the one speaking necessarily, but he is speaking through Mark.  

Gene Green   

Yeah, there’s the church father, Papias, who talks about the gospel of Mark being the anecdotes of Peter. And that Mark was Peter’s translator. Now for many years, people didn’t think that that was really a faithful statement. But scholars such as the late Martin Hangul and Richard Bauckham, and others have said, No, we believe that Papias’ testimony is correct that that Mark was Peter’s interpreter. And basically, from Papias, we understand the gospel of Mark was Peter’s preaching, translated and formed into a gospel. But it’s interesting. Papias also says that, the gospel of Mark is not “in order,” in order which doesn’t mean chronological or logical order. But it was language that was used at the time to talk about a literary production. This is not a final, polished literary production. Whereas Matthew, for example, is in order, which means that it’s a final edited edition. So, there’s something rough; I mean, we teach Greek, we speak Greek-well we read Greek. And we know that the Greek of Mark is not the best of the New Testament. There’s something rough about it. But this is the first telling of the Jesus story. And then we have Matthew and Luke, at least according to one school of thought, that are using this gospel, which is really in some ways an inferior literary production. And the question is, why did they use it? If it wasn’t the best, and I think it’s because Peter,  is behind it. He’s just amazing. Now, you know, what started me off on the study was the recognition that the New Testament witness about Peter always puts him in the first place. He’s the first disciple chosen, he’s the first to walk on water and sink, but he did walk on water, not something you and I have done recently, and he’s the first one to confess that Jesus was the Christ. Yeah, he was the first to deny the Lord but he was the first to be restored. Go tell my disciples and Peter. He was remembered as the first witness of the resurrection, the women were there first. But he was remembered by the church as the first Apostolic witness to the resurrection. First leader of the early church, I’m working on Acts right now-there’s Peter. Yeah, right at the beginning, and the first one to open up the mission to the Gentiles. And the first one to defend Gentile inclusion without conversion to Judaism without having to be circumcised. So there’s something there’s a Petrine primacy, in the New Testament.  

David Capes   

And there’s deference in Paul’s language, too, for Peter? There’s some little bit of a struggle going on there and Galatians 2. There’s still a deference in that a Peter extended to me the right hand of fellowship, he affirmed my gospel. 

Gene Green   

Right, and so Peter has a much more prominent place in the early church than we recognize. And the argument that I’m trying to build is that that primacy wasn’t just about leadership in the church, but it was about theology as well. I think that Peter is foundational for Christian theology.  

David Capes   

So, is Peter the first theologian, in a sense? I mean, Paul’s literary output is much greater, and he was first. 

Gene Green   

 I like to wind up my Pauline scholar friends by saying that Paul is derivative of Peter. And when you think about Peter’s story about Jesus, I mean, he was the one that recorded what we know or remembered. What we know as Mark 10:45, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. And here he’s bringing together obviously, teaching from Jesus, but mediated through Peter to Mark and then in our Gospel. So, our basic understanding of what the cross is all about. Where does it come from?  

David Capes   

As a Protestant, they would go to First Corinthians, they would go to Galatians. Right? We almost always go to Paul.  

Gene Green   

Yeah. And it’s really Peter, who is giving that first testimony. And in Galatians, Paul says he went up and interviewed Peter, he talked to Peter and I don’t think they just sat around and had a cup of mint tea. Or talk about the weather. But where did Paul get his full understanding  of the Jesus story? So we find that there’s not this type of old Tubingen school, two wings of Christianity, Pauline and a Petrine.  You know Martin Goulder, in a revival of that. No. There was a right hand of fellowship between them. So there is harmony. 

David Capes   

There’s tension in every human relationship too. So sure, these guys are not infallible completely. 

And you know, a similar case been made for James but other people as well that James is much more significant figure that we don’t totally ignore, right, but we don’t spend a lot of time with it. So, is there anything unique about Peter’s theology compared to let’s say, Paul, or John or Matthew? 

Gene Green   

Exactly. That Petrin primacy. That’s there. He was a more important figure in Christian theology than we dare realize. 

David Capes   

Yeah, he is certainly an influencer. At the very beginning, isn’t he of all this. Now, let me let me ask this. Beyond the New Testament, there are a number of books like the acts of Peter and the acts of Paul and Peter and the apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel of Peter right? There are these other books. Do you include those in your book, Vox, Petrie?  

Gene Green   

To answer that, let me read to you a little bit from ‘Vox Petri, Theology of Peter’. And this is at the end of the book, “Peter and the Foundations for Christian Theology’. And I think that’s the point of this book, that Peter is foundational for our full understanding of the faith. Let me read “Peter was the first to tell the story of Jesus as a narrative whole, the first to identify Jesus as the Messiah, and the first to explain the meaning of the cross of Christ. He developed his theology on the road, in the face of opposition, offering the church a theology of suffering and glory. He stood to the very beginning of Christian understanding of the inclusive nature of God’s saving work through Christ, the Jews and the Gentiles together. All people, both Gentiles and Jews have a place in God’s plan. The Apostle lifted the church’s eyes in hope to the final consummation of all things, when God’s act of restoration would be complete.” All that is very familiar. And that’s the point and that was a surprise. That when we take a look at Peter and his theology it’s not that it’s unique. But the beauty of it is that it’s not unique. It’s the theology that you and I, and the rest of the church have inherited and understood. It’s just that we haven’t recognize that at the very head of the table is Peter as the first Christian theologian and our contours of the faith, our understanding of the gospel is mediated to us, obviously, it’s originated from Jesus, but mediated to us in the first place through Peter. And that’s the beauty of it. So, as I said, Peter is the lost boy of Christian theology, but in the end of the day, he’s been sitting there at the table all along. We just didn’t see him. We didn’t recognize him.  

David Capes   

So, you don’t hear the authentic voice of Peter, then in these other second century or third century manuscripts? 

Gene Green   

No, I really don’t. And I’d want to refer people to the work by Pheme Perkins on Peter, the apostle for the whole church. And what Pheme Perkins does is talk about the way that in the early church, second, third century, that if you wanted to support a heresy, you appeal to Peter because he was recognized as so foundational for theology, so central that you’d appeal to him. Or if you wanted to take down a heresy like the Gnostic heresy; Well, you’d bring up the story about Peter and Simon, the magician, who was considered by some to be the genesis of Gnosticism. So, you would appeal to Peter. So, I think it’s interesting that in the early church, there was a recognition of Peter’s theological role, and not simply his leadership role in the church.  

Gene Green   

Well, I’ll just say that hasn’t been part of the study. Are there echoes of his voice in that? Possibly. Well, there’s echoes of his importance whether there’s any fragments in there of Peters theology, I’d hesitate. Now, truth in advertising here in Vox Petrie, I didn’t deal with Second Peter either. Yeah. And I’ve written commentary on Second Peter and Jude couple of commentaries on them.  

David Capes   

Well, this is a big book to start with. 

Gene Green 

And there’s so much controversy about the authorship of Second Peter, although I come down in favor of the authorship, I just didn’t want it to be a distraction. From this. I think there’s another study to be done to take this material and then ask, are there resonances there in Second Peter. Obviously, the style is different in the Greek, and, and there’s some changes in emphasis in Second Peter, but I think it’s a worthwhile study that I hope somebody will do,some day. 

David Capes   

Well, this is a book that took you how long to write? 

Gene Green   

Oh, my, well, you know, Peter, and I started going a long time ago. I mean, I started back in my doctoral studies at Aberdeen in 1977. You know, I worked on First Peter, theology and ethics and First Peter. So this has been a long time coming, but this particular book, about 15 years, yeah, you know, but that’s in the middle of writing some other things and fishing, but it was a slow process. It was slow cooked.  

David Capes   

The old adage, I hate writing, but I am so pleased that I have written. It is done.  

Hey, listen, thanks for being with us today, Gene on the Stone Chapel Podcast.  

We’ve been talking to Dr. Gene Green, who’s written an amazing book and awesome book, I’d encourage you to go out and get a copy and read his called Vox Petrie: a Theology of Peter, published by Cascade Press.  

If you’ve learned too much today, in the podcast, there is one guaranteed cure, and that is to share it with a friend. It’ll take the pressure off the brain, okay? If you’ve never visited the amazing Lanier Theological Library, make plans to do it soon. We are growing, we’re expanding. We’ve got a new presence over in Oxford, England. This is a place of solace and discovery. If you have comments for us or some questions or just want to be in touch, contact us at podcast@lanierlibrary.org. And thanks to all those who make this podcast possible, you know who you are Till next week, thanks for listening. Standby for a nugget of wisdom from our friend, Dr. Gene Green. 

I had open heart surgery in 2010. And I’ll never forget after that somebody came in and gave me a glass of orange juice. And I broke out in tears. There was something so wonderful in its taste, and that freshness-an absolute delight. And I’d like to say for all of us that life is grand, and we find the grandeur of life given to us by God and just the simplest things. It might be the rays of the sun, shining through the clouds and might be the emerging of spring where I live in Chicago. It might be a first kiss that you’ve had. Life is grand-the birth of a child. And we’ve got a lot of, a lot of problems in life. We have sickness, we have death, we have heartache and lack, but still there’s a grandeur in life. So I like to say to people, life is grand.