Election shapes the identity and mission of the people of God.  God set his love upon a particular people in eternity past to save them so that through them he might draw others into his redemptive love. God’s people pervert their identity as God’s elect when they fail to embrace election’s missional aspect.  Israel was […]

  Maddie and I drove up to East Lansing to see U2 on Sunday and had a blast.  Sarah and I saw them at Soldier Field in September ’09, which was amazing, but it was a unique delight to take my daughter to her first show.  It was equally wonderful that she’s now driving so […]

If we want to think rightly about divine election, it is crucial to have the proper starting point.  When Paul utilizes election language, he begins with believers being in Christ.  This reality is prior to Paul’s celebrating their identity as those upon whom God set his love from eternity past.  Theologically, being in Christ comes […]

A brief word about theological method. The narrative shape of Scripture must discipline our theological speech so that we speak faithfully of God and God’s ways with his people.  Our theologizing about any notion within Scripture must be constrained and shaped by the form of that notion within the narrative. Divine election has its proper […]

We must keep in mind a second aspect of divine election in Scripture in order to see that it does not stand in tension with God’s love.  God sets his love upon a particular people so that they might be the agents whereby God swallows up even more people into his love. Divine election is […]

Many Christians flinch at biblical talk of election.  It seems a dark corner of Christian theology that is better left alone.  It’s like God’s dirty secret that we’d rather not know about, the skeleton in God’s cosmic closet.  We’re afraid we’re going to find out that God’s heart is like the Grinch’s—two sizes too small. […]

My new institution, Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, is looking for an Old Testament person.  I’m delighted to be starting there full-time this fall.  Check it out!

I’m teaching a summer class on Romans and gearing up for the U2 concert next week at the same time so I’m hearing layers of resonance between Paul and these peerless contemporary theologians.  One of these is the inter-connections between Spirit, cross-shaped existence (cruciformity), and community life. Paul writes to a community in crisis over […]

I’ve been considering competing hermeneutical postures recently. A few weeks ago I finished The Whites of Their Eyes, Jill Lepore’s brilliant analysis of the uses of the American Revolution.  Among other things, she describes the phenomenon of “historical fundamentalism.”  She has in mind the failure to recognize the historical distance between the 18th century and our […]

Too much salvation-history and far too much systematic theology is read into Romans.  I do realize, of course, that Paul writes about the promise to Abraham, Israel’s mission and failure, and the Law’s role on the stage of human history.  But it seems to me that we ought to give serious consideration to reading some […]