What does it mean to participate in the cruciform Lord Jesus Christ so that our life together becomes a living exegesis of the gospel? Michael Gorman has been tremendously influential in exploring this question within the New Testament, particularly in the letters of Paul, the Gospel of John, and the book of Revelation. His 2001 book Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross inspired a generation of scholars and was the first in a trilogy of New Testament theology devoted to exploring the role of the cross, participation in Christ, and becoming the gospel in mission. Here, an assemblage of some of the best and brightest current New Testament exegetes honor Gorman’s work with contributions of their own, each of which further explores these three critical themes in various passages of the New Testament. Cruciform Scripture is more than a tribute to a giant of biblical scholarship. Its contributors (including N. T. Wright, Sylvia Keesmaat, and Richard Hays) are masters in their own right who offer incisive interpretations of essential themes of New Testament theology and the core concerns of Christian life in community. As they reason together in this volume, they amplify one another’s voices as well as Gorman’s, modeling a way that careful reflection on Paul’s determination to “know nothing . . . except Jesus Christ and him crucified” can engender fruitful insights on the nature of discipleship. Contributors Ben C. Blackwell, Sherri Brown, Frank E. Dicken, Dennis R. Edwards, Rebekah Eklund, Dean Flemming, Patricia Fosarelli, Stephen E. Fowl, Nijay K. Gupta, Richard B. Hays, Andy Johnson, Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Brent Laytham, Christopher W. Skinner, Klyne R. Snodgrass, Drew J. Strait, and N. T. Wright.

In this groundbreaking study of Paul's soteriology, Michael Gorman builds on his influentialCruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spirituality of the Cross to argue that cruciformity is, at its heart,theoformity -- what the Christian tradition has called theosis or participation in the life of God. "A richly synthetic reading of Paul. . . . Gorman deftly integrates the results of recent debates about Pauline theology into a powerful constructive account that overcomes unfruitful dichotomies and transcends recent controversies between the 'New Perspective on Paul' and its traditionalist critics. Gorman's important book points the way forward for understanding the nonviolent, world-transforming character of Paul's gospel." -- Richard B. Hays, Duke Divinity School

The truth claims of Christianity appear compromised by the division of Christ’s followers into different denominations. What keeps Christians separated, retreating to their corners labeled Catholic, Orthodox, and various types of Protestant? Elizabeth Smith Woodard accounts for Christian disunity in terms of ecclesiology, episcopacy, and apostolicity: in brief, Who are we? Who is in charge? And are we who we say we are? Woodard argues that the controversial issues dividing Christians today stem from these questions of authority and identity. What would it look like, Woodard asks, if Christians did not insist on making “others” more “like us,” but instead worked toward all of “us” becoming more and more like Christ? She answers that growing in such cruciformity should serve as the basis for unity. Using recent unity-achieving Anglican-Lutheran discussions as a case study, she examines the crucial intersection of ecclesiology, episcopacy, and apostolicity to argue that Christians’ growth in Christ’s mission necessarily entails growing in unity and cruciformity.

Despite an increasing portion of our lives being conducted online, the topic of the internet is vastly underrepresented in the current literature on technology and theology. The HTML of Cruciform Love challenges outdated misconceptions about internet theology and asserts that there is no topic more pertinent to our daily walk as contemporary followers of Jesus Christ than the theological implications of the internet age. These twelve essays investigate the themes of community and character formation in the digital realm. A host of interrelated sub-themes are represented, including the application of patristic theology to contemporary internet praxis, a demonology of the internet, and virtue ethics in cyberspace, while other studies consider the influence of internet technology on aesthetics, personhood, and the self. Together, the essays work towards a collaborative, constructive, cruciform theology of the internet as something more than a supplementary component to our personal lives; rather, it is a vital medium for the digital communion of the saints through the HTML of cruciform love.

What is left of the Gospel if you take away the cross? This central question, asked by C. L. Loos but tucked away in a nineteenth-century journal, launched The Cruciform Church twenty-five years ago. Read by a generation of ministers and church leaders, The Cruciform Church began a reimagination of the church in our increasingly, secular age. Now updated, with responses from eight key leaders, this contemporary classic aims to reach a new generation with the critical questions of faith and life. New Responses by: - Sara Barton - Richard Beck - Lee Camp - Raymond Carr - Randy Harris - John Mark Hicks - Scot McKnight - Jonathan Storment

When it was first published in 2001, Cruciformity broke new ground with a vision of Pauline spirituality that illuminated what it meant to be a person or community in Christ. Beginning with Paul’s express desire to “know nothing but Christ crucified,” Gorman showed how true spirituality is telling the story, in both life and words, of God’s self-revelation in Jesus, so that we might practice “cruciformity”—the impossible possibility of conformity to the crucified Christ. Two decades later, Gorman’s seminal work is still a powerful model for combining biblical studies and theological reflection to make Paul’s letters more immediately relevant to contemporary Christian life. This twentieth-anniversary edition includes a new foreword by Nijay Gupta—a next-generation Pauline scholar heavily influenced by Gorman—as well as an afterword by the author, in which he reflects on the legacy of Cruciformity in the church and the academy, including his own subsequent work in Pauline theology.

Scripture, Texts, and Tracings in Galatians and 1 Thessalonians advances the interpretation of these letters by exploring how the Apostle Paul quotes, alludes to or "echoes" the Jewish Scriptures and other ancient materials. Comparative wording is at the forefront, whether in relation to Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, or prophecies and promises from Genesis, Habakkuk, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Psalms, or other texts such as Philo. Issues and controversies include such topics as faith (ἐκ πίστεως), the Torah, the Holy Spirit, holiness, suffering, eschatology, allegorical interpretation, identity of the Israel of God, Zion and the return from exile, Roman piety, imperialism, and hidden transcripts.

How does a Christian render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's? This book is the result of the Bingham Colloquium of 2007 that brought scholars from across North America to examine the New Testament's response to the empires of God and Caesar. Two chapters lay the foundation for that response in the Old Testament's concept of empire, and six others address the response to the notion of empire, both human and divine, in the various authors of the New Testament. A final chapter investigates how the church fathers regarded the matter. The essays display various methods and positions; together, however, they offer a representative sample of the current state of study of the notion of empire in the New Testament.

The Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies (JBTS) is an academic journal focused on the fields of Bible and Theology from an inter-denominational point of view. The journal is comprised of an editorial board of scholars that represent several academic institutions throughout the world. JBTS is concerned with presenting high-level original scholarship in an approachable way. Academic journals are often written by scholars for other scholars. They are technical in nature, assuming a robust knowledge of the field. There are fewer journals that seek to introduce biblical and theological scholarship that is also accessible to students. JBTS seeks to provide high-level scholarship and research to both scholars and students, which results in original scholarship that is readable and accessible. As an inter-denominational journal JBTS is broadly evangelical. We accept contributions in all theological disciplines from any evangelical perspective. In particular, we encourage articles and book reviews within the fields of Old Testament, New Testament, Biblical Theology, Church History, Systematic Theology, Practical Theology, Philosophical Theology, Philosophy, and Ethics.

Employing the symbols of the cruciform cathedral and the Celtic cross, the aim of this book is to cast a vision for the Cruciform Life, living as disciples of Jesus who are being shaped by the cross (gospel) into people and churches who share and show the cross (gospel) as they live the vertical life of loving God with all their head, heart, and hands and the horizontal life of loving people as Christ has loved them.