Wipf & Stock New Testament Theology Collection (6 vols.)

Schweizer listens carefully to the testimony of the various New Testament writers in order to understand the theological problem of how the New Testament church understood itself, and how it expressed that understanding in its order. The purely historical question about the form of the church at different times is seen by Schweizer as necessary, but need only be asked insofar as the actual shaping of the church is always evidence of the concept of its own nature to which it testifies. Thus, Schweizer arranges the New Testament writings primarily by the theological kinship of their idea of the church, providing a comprehensive examination of the church in the New Testament and Apostolic Fathers. He treats both the diversity of views and the unity found in these writings. He also discusses issues relating to church office, ministry, and ordination.

With a comprehensive sweep of the relevant literature--including classical and Hellenistic sources, the Septuagint, and the New Testament--the author defines disciple and related terms as they were used in the ancient world. Pertinent Semitic words from the Hebrew Bible, Rabbinic literature, and Qumran documents provide additional background for the term. A special emphasis is Matthew's use of mathetes and the role of Simon Peter as a model disciple.

The study first appeared in 1988 in the prestigious Novum Testamentum Supplements under the title The Concept of Disciple in Matthew's Gospel: As Reflected in the Use of the Term Mathetes. In this second edition, the author includes a new chapter outlining advances in the field since the book was first published.

In recent years the theme of the kingdom of God has come to the forefront in the preaching, teaching, and popular writing of Christians of all theological persuasions. Any attempt to gain clarity on the biblical meaning of the phrase the "kingdom of God" must take the teaching of Jesus as its major point of reference; for the prominence of kingdom terminology today is directly attributable to the great frequency with which he appealed in his teaching to the notion of God's kingdom.

In this little book, the author sets Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom of God against its Jewish background and discusses some of the characteristic emphases that appear in Jesus' message. He then identifies three broad ways in which God's kingdom operated in Jesus' ministry, which he suggests provide, at least in broad outline, an agenda for the Church today as it strives to bear witness to the "gospel of the kingdom" entrusted to it by its Lord.

This book is a reading of Matthew's Gospel as though it were written to integrate with, advance, and conclude the existing body of Scriptures. Matthew is read as though John was the last prophet of God and Israel's last chance for repentance, and that Jesus was YHWH who had come to judge the Temple, priesthood, and covenant nation according to the terms of the covenant God made with Moses at Sinai. Through this lens, new interpretations are given to the infancy narrative, the Sermon on the Mount, the mission, the parables, and Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem along with the events that followed.

By reading Matthew this way, a greater appreciation can be gained for its necessary place in the canon, and many of Matthew's well-known conundrums can be meaningfully addressed. As a Hebrew document, Matthew understood the necessity to record the crimes against YHWH/Jesus in Israel and Jerusalem as the ultimate cause for the termination of the ethnically and geographically bound covenant, which could then be replaced by the cross-cultural and international covenant that Christians now enjoy.

Jesus' parables in Luke weren't only addressing his audience. Rather, Luke used them to address his audience. In so doing, the worlds of both Jesus and Luke had many ways to understand these parables. This book explores some of those ways based on the way Jesus and Luke told these stories, as well as the first century backgrounds. The ultimate goal is to help both people who lead Bible studies and preach in the church to grasp firmly Luke's message for us today.

This classic study of the transfiguration of Jesus on the Mount of Olives places this important theological event in the context of a larger examination of God’s glory throughout the narrative of Scripture. Tracing the glory of the Lord, beginning in the Old Testament through the Gospels and Paul’s letters, Ramsey demonstrates how God’s understanding the nature of God’s glory is so essential to understanding Jesus’ transfiguration and the theology of God, and the basic message of the Gospel.