Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology

It[is] unlikely that the main question concerning Paul in Romans is how can an individual sinner become a righteous man in God's sight. Rather, Paul seems chiefly concerned to answer another, more fundamental question: Under whose dominion is the world?

Deuteronomy forced the issue of humanitarian considerations and of freedom on the community at the moments when it was truest to itself—the moments of worship and cultic celebration, notably on the sabbath, the sabbatical year, and the harvest festivals.

... we are to look to God for what which only he can give. If it is available elsewhere, we are not to ask for it even though he can provide it. One thing which only he can give us is genuine goodness or holiness . .. and another is his Kingdom.

Perhaps the chief contribution of charismatic Christianity in our day will not be to teach us all to speak in tongues, but to help us understand and receive our life together as a gift from God through Christ.

God is one, his gifts many. The Bible has within it a breadth which only the hermeneutics of prophetic critique can reveal.

As the formal canon of the New Testament was wider than the core New Testament, so also the early church's notions of “scripture” were wider than those documents which became canon. By understressing this point, much of the richness and existential plurality of the early church's experience can be lost.