Full Gospel? Well, almost!

Vít Řezníček

We live in a global age. Societies we live in are changing faster than ever before. Our
community – the Christadelphians – is no exception. The development of sciences during
the 20th century presented significant challenges to the faith of many and as a result, our
society changed in such a way that faith/faithfulness ceased to be a meaningful option
“in the world come of age”. Others simply opt not to respond to these challenges and
prefer a safe pietistic refuge of the church without much or any interaction with the
outside “godless” world. The first option is sad, yet understandable if seriously and
honestly considered. The latter is unnecessary and in the end self-destructive for any
person or faith community. How are we then supposed to navigate ourselves in the
tumultuous waters of a changing society/culture?1

Setting the Stage

The Gospel is to be shared with and communicated to the world despite, or precisely
because we live in a world that does not know God any more. But every single act of our
communication is intrinsically embedded in a variety of contexts, and we need to
transmit and inspire others with the Gospel in a way they can comprehend,2 without
assuming any prior factual knowledge on the part of our audience that lives, at least in
our Western society, with very little or no idea about God and how he relates to the
world. The importance of the media for the transmission of the Gospel throughout the
centuries has been well documented:

It becomes apparent, in looking at the mediation of Christianity historically, that

Christianity was born, developed, and is constantly evolving in environments of changing
mediated social communication. In the process, it feeds on, interacts with, and absorbs
characteristics of those environments. Even the fundamental intellectual process of framing
and expressing Christian ideas and beliefs uses linguistic and symbolic resources that are
circulating through communication in the wider cultural environment, and implements them
in ways that in turn resonate back to those cultures.3

1|Page
If we are honest and self-critical, we have to admit that a common excuse for not being
successful at communicating the Gospel to a broader society around us has nothing to
do with the belief that we are living in “the last days”. Quoting 2 Peter 3:3-7 or 2 Timothy
3:1-5 as a response is just an excuse, and a sign of intellectual laziness. We have failed at
finding the right means and language to get our message across to our audience within a
“post-textual (cybernetic), post-Christian (pluralistic), and post-modern (relativistic)
age.”4 Therefore, if the world today ignores God or does not know much about him, an
obligation arises on our part to find a language that will be accessible even for those
who do not share our religious metanarrative. Ever since the mid-20th century this need
has become a constant:5 6 7

When we speak of God in a non-religious way, we must not gloss over the ungodliness of the
world, but expose it in a new light. Now that it has come of age, the world is more godless,
and perhaps it is for that very reason nearer to God than ever before.8

But we ought to go further than that. Even when we finally speak the language the
society that we live in can understand, we have to make sure we are speaking about the
same topics they are engaged in and vice-versa. Thankfully, there seems to be a growing
awareness within our community that we need to address these issues, otherwise we will
lose relevance and any credibility.

Our community has always prided itself in restoring the original gospel message and it
has always tried to correct and complement what has been perceived as missing parts in
other churches’ presentations of it. One example of this approach can be seen in Alan
Hayward’s booklet entitled “Full Gospel - or Half Full?”9

While I have no issue with our attempts at correcting doctrinal misunderstandings,

which I deem as something very basic and essential, I would question the apparent
status quo that seems to keep telling us that the doctrinal concerns should be the
primary ones motivating our theological reflections. One popular quote in this context is
Jude 3:

2|Page
Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to you about our common salvation, I
now feel compelled instead to write to encourage you to contend earnestly for the faith
that was once for all entrusted to the saints.10

While Jude is encouraging the community he is addressing to contend earnestly for the
faith, his original intention was to write them about their common salvation. When we
get to the second part of verse 3, we quickly forget the occasional character of the epistle,
and ignore Jude’s initial purpose to talk about something else. As a result, we adopt this
view characterized by demonizing everything that does not conform to the true doctrine.
Yet there is a better way than this obsolete outlook, in which we are constantly engaged
in a struggle for “the Truth”. What if we imagine for a moment what Jude might have
written, had he been given another opportunity? How does a common salvation
actually look like? What is the “full Gospel”?

But before we go any further, we need to make one thing clear. Saying we need to leave
behind an obsolete outlook or “metanarrative,” as it is sometimes called,11 does not mean
I agree with the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard who has introduced the
concept of “metanarrative” in his 1979 classic “The Postmodern Condition” and who
argues that in the post-modern era people no longer believe in these “great stories”. On
this particular issue I tend to side with N. T. Wright who believes that:

…in principle the whole point of Christianity is that it offers a story which is a story of the
whole world. It is public truth. Otherwise it collapses into some version of Gnosticism.12

While the whole issue of competing metanarratives is much more complicated than can
be elucidated in this brief article, my point is simply that the story we choose to tell
about our self-definition as a community - and every single human being and every
single group of people has such a story - should be a story motivated by love, and love
that is at all times, in one way or another situated in space and time, and focused on the
discipleship of all those who follow Jesus of Nazareth. As expressed in Paul’s famous
words in 1 Corinthians 13:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a
clanging cymbal. And if I have prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I

3|Page
have all faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give
away everything I own, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I
receive no benefit. (1 Cor. 13:1-3)

What Paul is doing in this hymn is to constantly call the attention of the Corinthians
away from their “supernatural” Spirit gifts, from other-wordly to this-wordly issues and
problems, both individual and communitarian, which must be confronted with love as an
overarching and guiding principle even in a community ripped apart by conflicts such as
the ones we can see at Corinth.13 Paul wants them to understand that their, as well as
our spiritual gifts are of no good, if not implemented for the well-being of the wider
community. It is impossible to prove any dependence on or allusions to John 13 but
certainly the two images of serving love in both Paul and Jesus bear striking similarities.

It is notable, from my point of view, that the first conflict or the first sin we read about,
comes only when both Adam and Eve have been created.14 It seems to suggest that this
web of incipient relations between the first two human beings, with others (animals and
humans), and the surrounding creation, is the space in which the drama of salvation is
going to unfold (cf. Paul’s imagery in 1 Corinthians 4:9) and that the drama is going to be
all about restoring the long lost shalom.15 All of us need a companion, somebody else,
the significant Other,16 as it were, to feel our humanity and love, as well as, sadly, to
discover the pervasiveness of sin.17 This fact will have important implications for our
understanding of the Gospel as we will see shortly.

As a community we have been focusing for far too long on the individual aspects of the
Gospel and have ignored the wider implications and consequences that our
understanding of the Gospel may have. Hayward’s booklet mentioned above, presents a
hypothetical conversation between two people. Often repeated slogan within our
community goes something like: “Understand the Bible for yourself!” But as it turns out,
we are never alone. While we never lose the sense of continuity of our own and unique
“I”, which we would call consciousness, we are at the same time constantly involved in a
larger network of relationships with something or someone. Without really noticing, we
are always situated, whether historically, socially, economically, politically,

4|Page
ecologically etc., and never in a vacuum as a sole individual, such as the existentialist
loner.18 Ultimately, we need others to understand ourselves and our world:

[Edith Stein] argued that for us to have an image of ourselves as a body, as a three-
dimensional unit in space, requires us to listen to and attend to what other people are doing
with respect to us. There’s something the other knows that I absolutely can’t; that is, what
the back of my head looks like ‘head on’, so to speak. Expand that in various ways and you
see how it applies in the construction of a physical picture of myself – but also in certain
aspects of the construction of a mental or psychological picture of myself: I cannot know
myself alone. I cannot invent language for myself: I have to be spoken to. I cannot picture
myself as a body or a self unless I am seen and engaged with.19

Consequently, as many probably imagine by now, this vision of human consciousness

and understanding has profound implications for our approach towards interpreting the
Bible or any kind of literature, art or daily events. For as individuals, we may be asking
quite a unique and specific set of questions, but we still ask these questions within an
environment that conditions us. Contrary to Descartes, it is now commonly believed
there is no such thing as a detached observer of the world or for our purposes, a
detached Bible reader:

For instance, we approach every situation from a prior context that inescapably shapes and
prejudices the way we encounter and react to that situation. Because this is how things
always are, because we are never in the position of a completely detached observer with no
prior experiences - we are never a clean slate if you like - we should not regard prejudice as a
condition that leads us to interpret the world falsely. Our prior experiences are a necessary
condition for us to interpret the world at all. Interpretation is always relative to prior
experiences.20

And similarly, as far as the Bible is concerned:

There is no normative “clear” lens—a reader with no baggage, untainted by culture, history,
or politics. All interpretation is socially, culturally, and ideologically situated somewhere,
and therefore all interpretation has some kind of filter.21

5|Page
What is this filter or perhaps more accurately filters that influence the way we read and
understand the Scripture? We will see this further below as we think about the Gospel
and its wider implications. Since the biblical witness has always been fundamental for
any Christian theology we need to talk about its own nature first. We have no space to
discuss different views on inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. Nonetheless, one thing
we can say is that, apart from some isolated voices, even those who hold to a very high
view of Scripture do not argue that inspiration equals dictation.22

If this is the case, then it means a larger or smaller amount of human involvement and
human conditions – bodily, gender, social, cultural, economic, and political – in the
process of the formation of the Bible that must be reflected somewhere as we read along.
German theologian residing in Peru, Eduardo Arens,23 has argued there are several steps
in the formation of the Bible and our process of understanding/interpretation. Whether it
is a step we or the author take, each step provokes several different questions, out of
which we will mention only few:

1. Events – the Bible was written because something happened in the first place.
Without this initial input in the real world, there would be nothing to talk
about.24 Does God act in the world today? Did he act in the past? If so, how can
events that are said have taken place in the Ancient Near East have a lasting
significance for modern Western Europeans or Latin Americans?
2. Interpretation – nonetheless, any event is interpreted by the individual or group
of people that lived through that experience. Necessarily, every interpretation is
subjective. It is my interpretation, which will largely depend on my education,
political views, language(s) I speak etc.25 Where, when, how and what happened?
Why did it happen? Who was involved – men, women, children, social outcasts?
3. Formulation – the lived experience, in order to make sense to others must be
formulated using words and terms others can understand. This again will heavily
depend on the particular culture, gender, language or time period in which and
during which this formulations take place.26 How do I formulate what has just
happened? In what language? How is my point of view different from others? Will I
formulate the experience right away or only some time later?

6|Page
 4. Transmission – once formulated, the experience is passed on to others. Person A
tells person B and the person B tells to person C and so it goes on. One crucial
factor in the process of transmission is that only the important and relevant
stories are remembered and transmitted while others eventually get lost and
forgotten.27 Who is doing the transmitting? Where? With whom? Why? What are the
checks to verify the veracity of what is being narrated?
5. Writing – for us a very obvious step. Not so much for the ancients, who were
living in societies with very low levels of literacy.28 Who is doing the writing? Who
is doing the reading? Who is listening? How does reading out loud (the tone of our
voice, intonation, or our facial expressions) change the meaning of what is being
read?
6. Canon – from all that has been written down a selection is made to constitute a
normative and authoritative list of the books to be considered as “inspired”.29
Who stands behind the decision making process? How long was the process? Is there
a possibility of a broader canon? What do we do with non-canonical books?
7. Translation – since most of us do not understand the original languages of the
Bible, whether Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, we have to rely on modern day
translations to help us.30 What are the guiding principles behind the translation we
are using? Have the translators used the latest scholarship? If we are checking other
resources, do we make sure they respect the scholarly consensus, even if presenting a
different view?
8. “I” – finally the “I” can rest on its own with the text. There are no obstacles to my
simple reading of the Bible any more. Well, not so fast. Since as we have just
seen, while some obstacles have been removed, other obstacles and other cultural,
philosophical, social baggage has taken its place. As a result there are still several
barriers that stand between us and the text.

This complicated process may at first seem strange and challenging to many of us who
were raised with a metanarrative in which a divinely inspired Bible “drops out of heaven”
complete and error-free. One may laugh at imagining such a simplistic illustration, yet
while we do not normally put it in these same and somewhat simplifying words, our

7|Page
underlying assumptions and convictions often betray we have such an image in mind
when it comes to the formation of the Bible.

What is the importance of all this? If this new metanarrative, in which the Bible is
participating very much in this world with all its processes were true than the issues of
verbal inspiration, literary authorship and other questions related to the Bible’s origins
and its normative role in our ecclesias would be viewed from a completely different
perspective and we would be much better positioned to accommodate the scientific,
theological and philosophical challenges that confront us in the 21st century. That
these challenges are far more than merely intellectual musings concerning a variety of
opinions should be clear to anyone who has tried to communicate the Gospel in a
context broader than our family or ecclesial halls.

The good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ

After this detour related to the formation of the Bible, which I thought fundamental for
setting up the stage for our discussion of the Gospel, we are ready to go back to the
beginning. What does a “full Gospel” actually mean? Is it simply about adding a
forgotten doctrine here and there, such as Jesus’ second coming or his teaching about
the Kingdom of God? Is not something more going on? Is it not something with much
wider implications for us and for the world?

As mentioned above, far too often in our preaching we focus on the individual.
Individualism is a fairly recent development or feature of our Western societies and
scholars are agreed that ancient Israelite society was much more collectivistic than our
post-modern one.31 In the book of Acts not only individuals but entire groups of people
get converted (cf. Acts 2:38; 8:12; 10:34ff; 16:15; 16:30-33; 18:8; 19:1-7). When we are
thinking about the Gospel, do we think only about individuals who convert or do we
keep in mind the way the Gospel affects entire communities? We need to keep the two
elements together at all times. Amos Yong helpfully notes that:

God saves people in families and communities, even while people are saved not only as souls
but as embodied, as material, economic, social, and political creatures, and as
environmentally and ecologically situated – hence the “full gospel.”32

8|Page
It would take us far too beyond the scope and limitations of this article if we were to
cover each one of the aspects that Yong mentions. However, it is important to sketch at
least an initial outline of what can be gleaned from the biblical material (mostly the
book of Genesis for the sake of brevity) about each topic and by doing so, it is hoped, a
dialogue will ensue and generate further discussion:33

 Embodied – the only existence we know about is the one we live in and as our
bodies.34 Our bodies conditioned by different skin colors, shapes, genders, sexual
orientations, (dis)abilities etc. In spite of the fact that humankind exists as a rich
35
variety of embodied creatures, there is one image of God that all human
beings are meant to reflect back to the world: “Then God said, Let us make
humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea
and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the
creatures that move on the earth.” (Gen. 1:26 NET). Our bodies are something
good and they are to be valued. The embodiment of the creation means, that at
it too will be part of the future Kingdom. Paul is crystal clear about this, and one
must be careful to distinguish two related concepts in Pauline thought – σάρξ
36
and σῶμα – so as to avoid any misunderstandings. The first term sarx,
commonly translated as “flesh” has mainly negative connotations. While the
second term soma, which is normally translated as body, is a strongly positive
term (soma/body is described as temple in 1 Corinthians 6:19) and it is one of the
images used to describe the church (1 Corinthians 12).
 Material – this creation of humankind and their bodies is a process that
involves modeling of a human being. While the first creation account is silent
about the process, the second creation story,37 beginning in Genesis 2:4 and
running through the rest of chapters 2 and 3, describes God as a potter who
models the human beings out of clay: “The LORD God formed the man from the
soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man
became a living being.” (Gen. 2:7 NET) This kind of human constitution requires
from us that we live in close contact with our environment and get our material
needs satisfied. But the satisfaction of our needs does not justify the savage
means that are frequently used to do so. And as a society we need to reflect on

9|Page
 our consumer habits, how much is actually enough, and how we might enact
Luke’s certainly idealized picture of the first Jerusalem community (Acts 2:44-
47), which while being a metaphor, has the power to create or inspire reality.38
 Economic – the humankind, in Genesis 1-3 represented by Adam and Eve, is
placed in the Garden of Eden. While in a popular imagery of the orchard, it
evokes a picture of paradise and rest, the humankind is to take care of the
surrounding garden: “The LORD God took the man and placed him in the orchard
in Eden to care for it and to maintain it.” (Gen. 2:15 NET) It is worth noting that
before the fall, humankind is to “care for and maintain the orchard” and that
only after the first sin, does the task change to cultivating the soil (Gen. 3:17-
19). No theology can deny the fact that our thinking is done within economic
systems.39 It seems that God’s initial plan for work was that it would not be an
oppressive necessity but a space for self-realization of human beings. But there
is a hope for escape from this toil – the Sabbath. Its importance lies precisely in
its disruptive function both in its ancient and modern day settings: “God blessed
the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had
been doing in creation.” (Gen. 2:3 NET). 40 And there is yet the final rest, the final
Sabbath we are expecting together with those who believed the Gospel (Heb.
4:1-11).
 Social – soon after the first man is created, the quest for a companion begins.
As mentioned above, we need others to understand the world and ourselves
better. And so even God cannot be ignorant of this need and declares: “It is not
good for the man to be alone. I will make a companion for him who corresponds to
him.” (Gen. 2:18 NET). Initially, God fails at creating a companion for the man.
The initial correspondence brought about by God is that the animals are also
created out of the ground. However, it is not this kind of similarity God and the
man look after. Therefore: “So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep
sleep, and while he was asleep, he took part of the man's side and closed up the
place with flesh.” (Gen. 2:21 NET) The text emphasizes the social relation
between Adam and Eve. On the other hand, Adam by getting to know, and by
naming all the animals (Gen. 2:19-20) also entered into a broader relationship

10 | P a g e
 with all that had been created by God. That there is no companion among the
animals fit for Adam does not imply the animals are meant to play only a
secondary role within the created world. They are an integral part of it from the
very beginning.41 Not only does Jesus spend time surrounded by his disciples
and the crowds but early on when he is tempted in the desert, he was with wild
animals (Mk. 1:13) just like Adam at the beginning.
 Political – the mankind is created for a purpose of caring for and maintaining
the orchard according to the account of Genesis 2. At the same time, the initial
account we find in Genesis 1 gives the first couple a much more global task:
“God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and
subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature
that moves on the ground.” (Gen. 1:28 NET) People often disagree as to the
definition of “political.” I believe it useful to stick to Aristotle’s definition. He
argues we are “political beings” not because we would militate in a political
party, but because we are human beings, and as such we live together with
others thanks to our capacities of reasoning and communicating. Therefore,
as far as we think, speak and live in contact with humans, all of us are
essentially political beings without necessarily participating in politics.42 If
somebody is skeptical about the “political” nature of the Gospel, it should suffice
to remind them the very term “Kingdom” is a strongly political one. Not because
of its political leanings but because of its relational and people-building
capacities that bring together people “from every nation, tribe, people, and
language” (Rev. 7:9).
 Environmentally and ecologically situated - Unfortunately, the previously
mentioned command to fill, subdue and rule the earth has been badly
misunderstood43 and this has led many to assume the Bible has nothing to say
about topics such as ecology, global warming, water stress and others.44 As
people of God therefore we have a debt with the Creator and his creation. Paul
uses a metaphor in which the whole creation is waiting to be set free from the
bondage of decay (Rom. 8:19-22). And in the book of Revelation, the personified
Earth comes to rescue the Woman that is persecuted by the Dragon: “Then the

11 | P a g e
serpent spouted water like a river out of his mouth after the woman in an attempt to
sweep her away by a flood, but the earth came to her rescue; the ground opened up
and swallowed the river that the dragon had spewed from his mouth.” (Rev. 12:15-
16) William P. Brown nicely illustrates the importance and poetics of ecology
and environmental care for the planet from the perspective of the Psalmist:

Read ecologically, the psalm [104] claims God’s biophilia as a model for humanity’s
role and presence in the world. Delighting in creation has nothing to do with
exploiting the world for the common greed. Rather, it has all to do with receiving
the world’s abundance for the common good, a sufficiency to be shared, not
hoarded. God does not value the world for its uniformity, as one totalizing habitat
for humanity. The destruction of natural habitats across land and sea takes us, in
the eyes of the psalmist, one step closer to diminishing God’s joy. Preserving natural
habitats for all of God’s creatures is crucial. The grave irony is that totalizing
humanity’s habitat on Earth is tantamount to destroying humanity’s habitat on
Earth. Equally important is finding ways to celebrate and enjoy creation’s goodness.
Ecology, the psalmist would remind us, is an exercise of joy. Delight celebrates the
abundance provided in the world without turning the world into a commodity. The
creatures to whom God extends life-giving provision do not respond by savagely
hoarding what is received. Rather, they live and they die, fully dependent upon the
God in whom they had their genesis, fully dependent upon creation through which
they are sustained.45

In face of the climate change and severe damage done to the Earth by human
beings every day, it seems unfortunate that we are continually fighting over
issues concerning human evolution, instead of focusing more decidedly on
problems that indeed matter and have much more serious repercussions for the
society as a whole. Perhaps we do not feel these changes and its effects so
strongly in the Global North, yet if we spent some time in developing countries, I
guess we would discover quite quickly its scorching consequences.46

12 | P a g e
Conlusions

The last quote talks about delight, joy and dependence. I proposed at the outset of the
article that love must be the overarching principle for all that we do in relation to the
Gospel. Where does the Gospel begin? It should be evident from the above that the Good
News starts already in Genesis. Not because it is the first book of the Bible, whether
chronologically or canonically, but because it is about creation. The Gospel also has a
creative or performative role to play: “So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
what is old has passed away– look, what is new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). By being in Christ
we become a new creation. But we do well to remember that “he sustains all things by his
powerful word” (Heb. 1:3). What does τὰ πάντα, commonly translated as all things, mean?
It means the “full Gospel” is about all things that surround us and we share mutually.
The way we construe the Gospel must face the fact that in a globalized world we have to
confront issues related to our bodies, genders, sexualities, both private and public
relations, economics, politics, or ecology. It is not about us transforming all these
things. It is about believing the Gospel47 and having this spirit of being in touch with
the reality that we are so much enmeshed in,48 about being faithfully present where
49
we are needed as witnesses to the coming Kingdom. I believe Rowan Williams is after
something when he affirms:

[The Holy Spirit] gives us something of Jesus’ capacity to hear what is really being said by
human beings. It gives us the courage not to screen out those bits of the human world that
are difficult, unpleasant, those that are not edifying. It opens our eyes and our ears and our
hearts to the full range of what being human means. So that, instead of being somebody who
needs to be sheltered from the rough truth of the world, the Christian is someone who should
be more open and more vulnerable to that great range of human experience.50

It is these concrete, specific and frequently troubling realities that people are asking
questions about,51 so while a need for solid biblical studies still exists, there is an equal
need for deeper theological and philosophical reflection that would engage in a dialogue
with our contemporary society on its own terms, without coming across as patronizing,
presenting it the “full Gospel” in its variegated forms (Mt. 5:16) that will lead men and

13 | P a g e
women to participate in our common salvation (Jude 3), which means all of our life with
its fullness (Jn. 10:10), each one of us according to his or her calling because:

The religious act is always something partial, faith is always something whole, an act
involving the whole life.52

1
The traditional way of framing the options has been, based on the work of H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and
Culture (1951) as follows: (1) Christ against culture; (2) Christ of culture; (3) Christ above culture; (4) Christ
and culture in paradox; (5) Christ the transformer of culture; I believe we do not need to choose one option;
rather, our ecclesias are to live the tension between all of them as argued in Oudtshoorn, Andre Van. “The
Ethics of Absolute Relativity: An Eschatological Ontological Model for Interpreting the Sermon on the
Mount.” Verbum Et Ecclesia 35, no. 1 (2014).
2
The preaching “campaign” in Acts 2 is an example of how speaking the same language impacts our
communicating the Gospel. One could argue that it was not simply the fact the apostles spoke other
people’s native languages that proved effective but also the fact they expressed themselves in culturally
understandable terms for their contemporaries from among the nations/gentiles.
3
Peter Horsefield, From Jesus to the Internet: A History of Christianity and Media. (Oxford: John Wiley &
Sons, 2015), 286.
4
Amos Yong, Renewing Christian Theology: Systematics for a Global Christianity. (Waco, TX: Baylor
University Press, 2014), EBL edition, ch. 12.
5
The term will be explained in more detail below.
6
Thomas J. J. Althizer, The New Gospel of Christian Atheism. (Aurora, CO: The Davies Group Publisher,
2002), 72.
7
John A. T. Robinson, Honest to God. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press), 25-27.
8
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison. (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1959), 166-167.
9
Alan Hayward, "Full Gospel - or Half Full?" - CBM Resources,
http://cbmresources.org/forums/index.php?/topic/148-full-gospel-or-half-full/.
10
Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from the NET Bible www.bible.org.
11
You can also come across the terms such as “grand narrative” or “master narrative”. In the rest of the
article we will be using the term “metanarrative” that has been also adopted in Biblical Hermeneutics. The
term as used in common philosophical parlance has mainly negative connotations. In Biblical Studies and
Theology the usage is much more positive referring to the entire story of redemption. See further: Kevin J.
Vanhoozer, Craig G. Bartholomew, Daniel J. Treier, and N. T. Wright eds., Dictionary for Theological
Interpretation of the Bible. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 506-507.
12
N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 41-42.

14 | P a g e
13
See for example the freely available doctoral thesis: Mark Finney. “Conflict in Corinth: The
Appropriateness of Honour-Shame as the Primary Social Context.” Ph.D. diss., University of St. Andrews,
2004.
14
How the figure of “Adam” was understood according to its changing literary, cultural and historical
context is nicely illustrated in Venema, Dennis R. and Scot McKnight, Adam and the Genome: Reading
Scripture after Genetic Science. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2017)
15
Lisa Sharon Harper, The Very Good Gospel (New York: WaterBrook, 2016)
16
A commonly used term in philosophy, popularized especially after the rise of Personalism. See for a
definition, Thomas D. Williams and Jan Olof Bengtsson, "Personalism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL:
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/personalism/
17
Matthew Croasmun, The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans. (New York: Oxford University
Press), 102-139.
18
I am of the opinion the term, as it is generally used, has been misunderstood. Existentialist individualism
is about becoming aware of our own self and this process of individualization never excludes others. Cf.
Stephen Michelman, Historical Dictionary of Existentialism. (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 2008), 188-189.
19
Rowan Williams, Being Human: Bodies, Minds, Persons (London: SPCK, 2018), 34.
20
Keith Devlin. “Good-Bye Descartes?” Mathematics Magazine 69, no. 5 (1996): 344–49.
21
Alison Gray, "Reception of the Old Testament," The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Companion, ed. John Barton
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016):. EBL edition, ch. 17.
22
J. Merrick and Stephen M. Garrett eds., Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2013)
23
Edurado Arens, La Biblia sin mitos. (Trinidad y Tobago: Morgan Editores, 2010), 27-33.
24
Clark H. Pinnock, The Openness of God. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 126-154; Christoph
Böttigheimer, ¿Cómo actúa Dios en el mundo? (Salamanca: Ediciones Sígueme, 2015)
25
Anthony Thiselton, The Two Horizons (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1980)
26
Michael F. Bird, The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI:
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2014)
27
Eric Eve, Behind the Gospels: Understanding the Oral Tradition (London: SPCK, 2013)
28
Gregory H. Snyder and Catherine Hezser. “Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine.” JBL 121 (2002): 496-505.
29
Lee Martin McDonald and James A. Sanders eds., The Canon Debate (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers,
2002)
30
Ernst Wendland, Contextual Frames of Reference in Translation (Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 2008).
The book is available online at academia.edu here:
https://www.academia.edu/1801673/CONTEXTUAL_FRAMES_OF_REFERENCE_IN_TRANSLATION
31
For the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament see especially Sandra L. Gravett, Karla G. Bohmbach, F. V.
Greifenhagen, and Donald C. Polanski eds., An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible: Thematic Approach
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008). For the New Testament see Bruce J. Malina, "Social Levels,

15 | P a g e
Morals and Daily Life" in The Early Christian World Volume I, ed. Philip Esler (London: Routledge, 2000):
369-400.
32
Amos Yong, Renewing Christian Theology: Systematics for a Global Christianity (Waco, TX: Baylor
University Press, 2014), EBL edition, ch. 9.
33
My intention throughout the article has been to reference sources that are often readily available online
and can be easily accessed, so that the reader can consult the scholarly literature itself.
34
Jacob Meiring. “Theology in the Flesh – a Model for Theological Anthropology as Embodied Sensing.”
HTS 71, no. 3 (2015).
35
Robert W. Jenson, A Theology in Outline: Can These Bones Live? (New York: Oxford University Press) 63-
71.
36
Paula Gooder, Body: Biblical spirituality for the whole person (London: SPCK, 2016)
37
David Bokovoy, "Two Creations in Genesis", n.p. [cited 28 Dec 2018]. Online:
http://www.bibleodyssey.net/en/passages/related-articles/two-creations-in-genesis
38
William H. Rueckert, “Metaphor and Reality: A Meditation on Man, Nature and Words.” KB Journal,
Volume 2, Issue 2, (Spring 2006).
39
D. Stephen Long, Divine Economy: Theology and the market (London: Routledge, 2000), 261.
40
Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2017)
41
We may see the importance given to the animals reflected in the biblical Flood narratives in Genesis 6-9.
42
See for more details the following: https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-pol/#SH7c
43
John F. Haught, "Science, Ecology, and Christian Theology" in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion
and Ecology, ed. John Hart (Oxford: John Wiley & Son, 2017): 117-129.
44
But see post 1,2 and 3 in the series “Ethics in the Law of Moses” by Jonathan Burke that can be found
here: http://living-faith.org/?post_series=ethics-law-moses
45
William P. Brown, Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010), 159.
46
Jane Hahn. “Once Lush, El Salvador Is Dangerously Close to Running Dry.” National Geographic.
National Geographic, November 5, 2018. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/el-
salvador-water-crisis-drought-climate-change/. This essay has been written taking into account and as a
result of personal experiences in El Salvador, one of the most severely affected countries by the global
warming crisis.
47
“Faith” may be a much more complicated concept than normally described and may include even some
amount of skepticism as part of the process of believing. See an intriguing reading of Abraham’s doubt and
belief in Nagel, Peter. “A Critical Investigation of Romans 4:3: Its Determinative Value for Justice and
Righteousness.” STJ 2, no. 1 (2016): 321–38.
48
Jacob Meiring, “Theology in the Flesh – Embodied Sensing, Consciousness and the Mapping of the
Body.” HTS 72, no. 4 (2016).

16 | P a g e
49
James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late
Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). See also footnote n.1 above.
50
Rowan Williams, Being Human: Bodies, Minds, Persons (London: SPCK, 2018), 57.
51
Samuel Wells et al., Introducing Christian Ethics (Oxford: John Wiley & Son, 2017)
52
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison (New York: The Macmillan
Company, 1959), 167.

17 | P a g e