Long-form studies examining biblical texts within their historical, linguistic, literary, and early Christian contexts.
Browse by topic, then choose a study. Read Online opens the complete web edition; Download PDF opens the original downloadable and printable file. Descriptions summarize each work’s argument.
Browse by Topic
Jesus & Christology — 5 works
Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance — 8 works
Baptism — 1 work
Holy Spirit & Spiritual Gifts — related research
Resurrection & Afterlife — 1 work
Eschatology & Revelation — 1 work
Israel, Covenant & Torah — 1 work
Early Christianity — 8 works
Biblical Interpretation & Languages — 4 works
Ancient Near East & Second Temple Judaism — 2 works
Published Works Reading Sequence
These six works follow the sequence set out on the Published Works page: Hearing → Thinking → Encountering → Understanding → Living → Shepherding.
The Foundation of Hearing and Thinking
Hermeneutics: Hearing What God Actually Said — PDF
Theology: What It Is and Why It Refuses to Stay in One Box — PDF
The Birth of Faith Itself
What They Knew Before There Was Theology — PDF
The Moment God Made Himself Known — PDF
The Recovery of Apostolic Substance
Restoring Apostolic Faith — PDF
The Narrative Spine
Jesus & Christology
Begin with the Jesus & Christology topic guide.
The Gospel of John: The Poet Among Historians
Examines how John’s narrative, symbols, and signs communicate Jesus’ identity and call readers to allegiance. By comparing John’s presentation with the Synoptic Gospels, the study explores the Word, divine life, witness, and the theological significance of the Gospel’s distinctive literary arrangement.
Primary topic: Jesus & Christology
Paul’s Beliefs: The Messiah Who Wouldn’t Fit the Mold
Explores how Paul’s encounter with the risen Jesus reshapes his reading of Israel’s Scriptures, his understanding of the Messiah, and his practice of worship. The study follows revelation, suffering, and participation in Christ rather than presenting a comprehensive system of Pauline theology.
Primary topic: Jesus & Christology
The Moment God Made Himself Known: How the Trinity Emerged in Real Time
Presents the author’s account of how early Christian confession of Father, Son, and Spirit grew from the resurrection, Pentecost, worship, and communal practice. The study considers the relationship between these experiences and later doctrinal language, arguing for continuity between encounter and confession.
Primary topic: Jesus & Christology
Sent, Not Begotten: The Angel of YHWH and the Logic of Divine Agency
Examines the Angel of YHWH through ancient concepts of commissioned representation and divine authority. Comparing biblical passages with Near Eastern and Jewish agency traditions, the author questions automatic identification of the messenger with the preincarnate Christ and distinguishes representation from identity.
Primary topic: Jesus & Christology
Who Do You Say That I Am?
Explores Jesus’ authority, obedience, and exaltation through Jewish agency language and the narrative sequence of the New Testament. The study asks what authorized representation explains, where it reaches its limits, and how resurrection and early Christian devotion shape the wider Christological question.
Primary topic: Jesus & Christology
Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance
Begin with the Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance topic guide.
Letter to The Saints in Rome Explained
Reads Romans as a sustained argument about God’s covenant faithfulness and the shared standing of Jewish and Gentile believers. Moving through the letter, it examines judgment, mercy, participation in Christ, allegiance, and the formation of a community whose conduct reflects its confession.
Primary topic: Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance
Letter From James Explained
Examines James as a call to integrity within a community facing trial, poverty, and divided loyalties. Its readings of faith and works, speech, wisdom, mercy, and endurance explore the author’s argument that hearing God’s word and acting upon it belong together.
Primary topic: Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance
Faith: When Courage Abounds but Strength Falters
Asks what enables faith to endure when resolve fails, beginning with Peter’s denial and restoration. Through biblical accounts of faltering believers, the study examines allegiance, endurance, repentance, and dependence on Christ, distinguishing return after failure from the refusal of correction.
Primary topic: Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance
The Kingdom Within Reach: A First-Century Vision of Theosis
Examines theosis as participation in God’s life through union with Christ, beginning with the kingdom saying in Luke 17:20–21. The author connects the passage’s language and setting with transformation, divine grace, and early Christian accounts of humanity’s promised incorruptible life.
Primary topic: Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance
Not Students, But Disciples
Explores discipleship as apprenticeship to Jesus that shapes conduct, habits, relationships, and communal life. Drawing on the Gospels and early Christian witnesses, the author asks how following and imitating Christ can give practical substance to a faith expressed primarily through beliefs or church activities.
Primary topic: Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance
When Truth Is Refused
Examines the rejection of unwelcome truth through Ahab, the lying spirit in 1 Kings 22, and Pauline warnings to Christian communities. The author develops an account of deception as judgment, asking how preference for reassuring messages can erode discernment and resistance to correction.
Primary topic: Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance
Salvation: From Covenant to Cross to Bema Seat
Traces salvation through covenant, the cross, participation in Christ, and final judgment. Engaging biblical language and early Christian sources, the author argues that divine initiative, repentance, faithfulness, and transformation form a continuing relationship rather than an isolated moment of assent.
Primary topic: Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance
The Theological Necessity of Self-Examination
Examines self-examination as a practice of Christian discipleship, beginning with Paul’s instruction in 2 Corinthians 13:5. The study considers the heart, self-deception, theological learning, and early Christian watchfulness, asking how discernment can renew allegiance to Christ without becoming anxious self-absorption.
Primary topic: Gospel, Salvation & Allegiance
Baptism
Begin with the Baptism topic guide.
Baptism: From the Mikvey to Today
Traces baptism from Jewish immersion and ritual purity through John, Jesus, and early Christian practice. The study examines water and Spirit, repentance, covenant belonging, and allegiance, asking how baptism’s scriptural and historical setting informs its meaning for Christian communities today.
Primary topic: Baptism
Holy Spirit & Spiritual Gifts
Begin with the Holy Spirit & Spiritual Gifts topic guide.
Relevant discussions appear in works filed under Early Christianity and Jesus & Christology:
Acts: The Name That Wouldn’t Stay Small
Corinth: The Church That Never Healed
The Moment God Made Himself Known: How the Trinity Emerged in Real Time
Resurrection & Afterlife
Begin with the Resurrection & Afterlife topic guide.
Sheol: The Journey of the Dead
Traces Sheol and Hades from the Hebrew Scriptures through Second Temple literature, the New Testament, and early Christian reception. The author distinguishes the intermediate state from final judgment and develops an account of Christ’s descent, bodily resurrection, and the eventual renewal of creation.
Primary topic: Resurrection & Afterlife
Eschatology & Revelation
Begin with the Eschatology & Revelation topic guide.
Revelation: Faithfulness in The Shadow of Empire
Reads Revelation as a call to faithfulness under imperial pressure and hope in Christ’s final reign. The study develops the author’s interpretation of the Beast, the mark, tribulation, the rapture, and renewed creation, with early Christian sources offered for readers to examine.
Primary topic: Eschatology & Revelation
Israel, Covenant & Torah
Begin with the Israel, Covenant & Torah topic guide.
Letter to The Hebrews Explained
Reads Hebrews as a pastoral sermon urging an established congregation to persevere. The study traces its use of Torah, wilderness, priesthood, sacrifice, and covenant imagery to explain the Son’s significance and the force of the letter’s warnings against neglect and turning back.
Primary topic: Israel, Covenant & Torah
Early Christianity
Begin with the Early Christianity topic guide.
Restoring Apostolic Faith
Calls the Church back to apostolic faith as a lived pattern of allegiance, obedience, formation, and shared life rather than a modern brand or institutional label. The study traces how resurrection, Spirit, teaching, worship, and pastoral practice belong together in the Church’s restoration.
Primary topic: Early Christianity
From Pen to Pasture
Follows the movement from the written witness of Scripture into the shepherding life of the Church. The study connects biblical narrative, apostolic teaching, and pastoral responsibility, asking how the text forms communities that hear, embody, and hand on the faith.
Primary topic: Early Christianity
Acts: The Name That Wouldn’t Stay Small
Reads Acts as the continuation of Israel’s covenant story through the risen Jesus and the Spirit’s work in the Church. The study follows the authority of Jesus’ name, baptism, shared meals, prayer, and mission as expressions of the author’s understanding of divine presence among the nations.
Primary topic: Early Christianity
Early Christianity Revisited Not Revised
Examines the author’s concern that Christian movements can separate belief from obedience, grace from transformation, or spiritual experience from communal faithfulness. Drawing on Scripture and early Christian witnesses, it compares apostolic patterns of discipleship with developments in later and modern church life.
Primary topic: Early Christianity
Corinth: The Church That Never Healed
Follows the Corinthian church through Paul’s correspondence and First Clement, examining the relationship between spiritual gifts, status, moral formation, and communal conflict. The author uses this history to consider how churches receive correction and whether giftedness is accompanied by humility and maturity.
Primary topic: Early Christianity
What They Knew Before There Was Theology
Explores early Christian hymns, divine names, confession, and worship as ways communities expressed their understanding of Jesus before later doctrinal formulations. The study considers how remembered events and shared practices carried theological meaning and shaped the language of Christian faith.
Primary topic: Early Christianity
The Silent Architecture of the Early Church
Studies the less prominent coworkers and messengers who helped sustain early Christian communities. Beginning with Acts 15, it examines how figures such as Judas Barsabbas and Silas carried teaching, clarified decisions, encouraged believers, and supported continuity across local churches.
Primary topic: Early Christianity
Augustine: Mystic-Rhetoric-Heretic
Presents the author’s critical assessment of Augustine’s intellectual formation and influence on Western Christianity. The study connects his engagement with philosophy and rhetoric to questions of original sin, predestination, coercion, and miracles, contrasting these developments with the author’s reading of earlier Christian witnesses.
Primary topic: Early Christianity
Biblical Interpretation & Languages
Begin with the Biblical Interpretation & Languages topic guide.
Hermeneutics: Hearing What God Actually Said
Presents hermeneutics as the disciplined work of hearing Scripture in its original language, culture, covenant setting, and literary form before carrying its meaning forward. The study argues that careful interpretation guards against projection and restores listening as an act of obedience.
Primary topic: Biblical Interpretation & Languages
Theology: What It Is and Why It Refuses to Stay in One Box
Explores theology as the whole Church’s lived response to God rather than a closed academic system. The work moves across Scripture, history, worship, culture, and practice to show why speaking rightly about God cannot be separated from knowing, following, and being formed by Him.
Primary topic: Biblical Interpretation & Languages
The Christian Bible– And How to Properly Read It
Introduces a contextual approach to reading Scripture through its literary forms, historical settings, and original audiences. The study explains how observation and interpretation precede application, helping readers approach the Old and New Testaments as a varied collection of writings rather than isolated verses.
Primary topic: Biblical Interpretation & Languages
Perfectly Imperfect: How Inspiration Survived Humanity
Examines how divine inspiration relates to Scripture’s composition and transmission through human writers and editors. Introducing documentary, supplemental, and later compositional approaches, the author considers whether acknowledging the Bible’s literary history can coexist with a serious account of its theological authority.
Primary topic: Biblical Interpretation & Languages
Ancient Near East & Second Temple Judaism
Begin with the Ancient Near East & Second Temple Judaism topic guide.
Order Before Evil
Examines divine authority, the accuser, angels, demons, and judgment through the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Jewish literature, and the New Testament. The author argues that distinguishing delegated authority from its misuse helps clarify biblical accounts of evil, temptation, responsibility, and allegiance.
Primary topic: Ancient Near East & Second Temple Judaism
The God Who Stops the Knife
Examines Genesis 22 through divine testing, covenant loyalty, restraint, and the surrounding world of sacrifice. The author argues that the binding of Isaac should first be read in its Jewish interpretive setting before later Christian typology is brought into the discussion.
Primary topic: Ancient Near East & Second Temple Judaism
Earlier collections: Monographs · Published Works
