Forging Ploughshares

In this introduction to Douglas Campbell's notion of the false teacher, Paul Axton explains justification theory, how it perverts Paul's Gospel, and the unconditional nature of Paul's Gospel. Jim, Brian, Jonathan and Matt act as interlocutors. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.   

The virgin birth is a sign of both the deity and humanity of Jesus. It signals the even more miraculous event of the incarnation, God with us, which reverses the typical human understanding portrayed in Plato's parable of the cave, which imagines the absolute requires escape from the created and material world. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The birth of Immanuel, God with us, means that a Person is at the center of reality. Other forms of conceiving reality will conceive of the categories of the mind as ultimate and fall short of personhood, but Christmas means personalism is final and full reality. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

In this conclusion to Jordan Daniel Wood's depiction of his departure from Hart, he locates the specifics of their difference in Jordan's focus on the personhood of Christ, which embraces sequence, development, and progress historically and in the learning of individuals, where Hart seems to set this aside.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Ever since the decree of Pope Nicholas in A.D. 1059, focus in the Eucharist has turned to the transformation of elements, rather than the transformation of persons into the person of Christ. Luther aggravates and moves the conversation forward, but the formula of Maximus combined with the developments of Aquinas and Luther, recaptures the early church understanding of the Love Feast.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jordan Daniel Wood lays out two possible understandings of David Hart's critique of his work on Maximus. He locates the central issue in Hart's depiction of nature, in which Hart would locate divinity but in which he would turn to the Person of Christ as uniting the natural and divine. Jonathan suggests that Bernard Lonergan's approach, dropping focus on nature but looking to human desire, may be a mediating understanding. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.  

In Corinthians, Paul says some are sick and dying due to their practice of the Lord's Supper. Is this crude magical thinking or does it accord with the picture in modern science of mind/body holism in which sick meaning systems give rise to literal sickness? Paul's  answer is to be incorporated into the body of Christ, inclusive of a new ethic, a new love, a new economy, and a new humanity. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jonathan leads the discussion of Pope Francis's Laudato si', with Tim, Brian, Jim, Jon, Jeff, Allan and Paul. What is the proper use of technology, such that it does not become a violent and shaping force and remains a means (not an end)? Global warming and overpopulation, must be addressed not simply at a technological but at a theological level.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The Lord's Supper is first known as the "love feast" which is both commanded by the New Testament and forbidden at the Council of Carthage, resulting eventually in the distorted meaning of the Mass. Correctly understood the love feast or eucharist is the enactment of the body of Christ - or the person of Christ - seen in sacrificial love. Literal reduction to blood and flesh reifies the sign and misses the person of Christ and the purpose of the meal, which is not to kill Christ but destroy what killed him in the lives of believers. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jonathan Totty leads the discussion with Brian, David, Jonathan, Allan, Jeff, and Paul on the once active social teaching of various churches, and the loss of this focus, and the return of Catholic Social Teaching as represented by Pope Francis. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Matthew chapter 5 depicts Jesus' accomplishment or fulfillment of the law as a direct reference to his person, his teaching, and his kingdom which the Mosaic law only pointed toward. Jesus ushers in a righteousness that abrogates and contradicts the law, such that one cannot "keep" the law and be a follower of Jesus. One cannot hate the enemy, a requirement of the law, and follow Jesus. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Jonathan, Matt, Matthew, Tim, Brian, Jim, David, and Paul continue their discussion of the book of Philemon, comparing it to Giorgio Agamben's notion of homo sacer, and Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and contrasting it to the letter from Pliny the Younger. Philemon as a worked example of revolutionary subordination is the Gospel in synopsis, and we discuss the practical way to apply the letter. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Some Jewish authorities are advocating the obliteration of Gaza, as this is Israel's by divine fiat, but Jesus saw himself as true temple and ushering in the true kingdom.  Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.  

Tim, Jonathan, Brian, Jim, David, Matt, and Paul discuss how it is that the tiny book of Philemon fills out the revolutionary nature of the gospel in its undermining of slavery and the institution of a new social order. Slavery is the motif defining sin, yet in the history of reception of Philemon, the revolutionary challenge of the gospel to slavery was ignored, downplayed, and denied. Implicit in this overlooking of Philemon is the failure to recognize the world changing revolution of the gospel in its defeat of the enslavement of sin and the inauguration of a new social order. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.  

Mike Johnson has put on display the reigning religion of Christian Nationalism, in imagining God ordained his rise as Speaker so as to support Israel. The appeal to Romans 13 is a key part of this Christian Nationalism, but this misses the true message of Paul that the Christian defeat of evil government is not through fusion of church and state, but by Christian adherence to the Kingdom built on resurrection power not through directing the state power of death.

In part 2 of our conversation, John DePue explains the history of interpretation of Romans up to the Reformation, the manner in which Phoebe would have acted out the text, and how it is an apocalyptic reading avoids supersessionism or antisemitism.  See Beyond Justification (https://wipfandstock.com/9781532678981/beyond-justification/) , by Douglas Campbell and John DePue. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The rise of Christian nationalism, first in England and then in the United States, has always been linked to Christian Zionism, which is now killing Palestinians, including Palestinian Christians. Ironically this is linked to Romans 11, where Paul sets forth the purposes of Israel to Christ, and refutes any eternalizing importance of the law or of ethnic Israel. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

John DePue explains to Jeff, Brian, Matt, David and Paul the historical and grammatical argument for reading Romans 1:18-32 and other places in Romans as Paul giving voice to the False Teacher. See Beyond Justification (https://wipfandstock.com/9781532678981/beyond-justification/) , by Douglas Campbell and John DePue. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

Many, such as John Calvin, presume the law is definitive of the economy of salvation, and thus read Romans 7 as the normal Christian life. The tragic error of this misunderstanding is to confuse the lie of sin with the solution of Christ. The lie of this false teaching is brought out by contrasting chapters 7 (life under the law) & 8 (new life in Christ) of Romans. Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.

The law always has its transgressive support – doing a particular form of evil so as to produce a particular form of the good. The law generates this embodied deception. In Paul’s imagery, the body can be attached to either law (Paul uses the phrase, “body of sin”) or to the body of Christ, the issue is, which is the constituting environment? Become a Patron! If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work.