Tag Archives: Scot McKnight

Book Reviews, General

Vision for 21st Century Evangelicalism

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For those not on Facebook, I have recently posted a series of links to David Flowers blog as he has started a series on the top five books American Evangelicals should read as they contextualize the New Testament into their lives and culture. Though I don’t know David personally, I have been following his blog for a year or so now and have found him to be a thoughtful and thorough author whose articles are worth reading – hence this post. 🙂

The first book that David Flowers lists as crucial for American Evangelicals is N.T. Wright’s “Surprised by Hope.” Having read this book, I would to agree with David that this is a game charger for American Evangelicals (assuming that they actually read it and ponder the practical implications). You can also read my review of this book here.

The second crucial book in David Flowers’ series is Scot McKnight’s “The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited”. This is a book that I have not read (yet) but I have been following Scot’s blog for quite a while and he is pretty dang solid when it comes to Jesus and the Kingdom. From what I can tell (both from David’s review and for reading Scot’s blog) the premise of the book is that there has been a “misunderstanding of the gospel” with the focus being on the act of salvation and not “radical discipleship” as outlined in the New Testament. This is definitely a concept that I agree with; hence why this book in on my too read list. 🙂

David has yet to publish his review of the other three books…so jump over to his site and catch up while you can. 😀

Theology Thoughts

Junia or Junias: Thoughts on Women in Church Leadership

Last week on his blog Frank Viola (author/speaker) posted a link to his essay “Reimagining a Women’s Role in the Church” which was originally meant for this book “Reimagining Church”, but was left out due to the length of the book in general.

Seeing how women in leaders is one of those ‘sticky’ issues in parts of the church today, I decided to wander over and skim his essay – well, that and the fact that Frank Viola is pretty influential due to his work with Leonard Sweet, George Barna, and others – meaning, of course, that it is good to know what his viewpoint is on the issue.

In skimming over the essay, I have to say that I was fairly impressed on the way in which Frank approached and dealt with the issue at hand. He retained the integrity of the Scriptures while looking at the full context in which they were written.

For example in his talk about the limited verses in 1 Timothy 2, Frank reminds the readers of the Gnostics teachings spreading throughout Ephesus that stated that Eve pre-existed Adam and because she tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge first, she was the “bearer of special spiritual knowledge”, which was the hallmark and desire of Gnostics. Seen again this background, St. Paul’s words to Timothy begin to take on a different mean than when they are read by themselves devoid of any culture/historical context.

In addition to bring up some things I had not thought about, Frank’s essay also reminded me of an ebook I had read a month or so ago. The book is in entitled “Junia Is Not Alone” and was written by Scot McKnight, New Testament scholar at North Park University in Chicago.

In that book Scot tackles Romans 16:7, which is a fairly controversial verse in the whole women in church leadership debate. For those who recall, Romans 16:7 makes reference to an apostle named “Junia.” I put the name in quotes as the debate sounding this verse is limited to whether or not the Greek name is feminine (Junia) or masculine (Junias).

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