Jonathan Brant was recently at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston.  While there, he delivered a great address. He stopped by and talked with David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcasts.

Jonathan Brant has spent the last 20 years or so in and around Oxford. Prior to that he lived in London.  After earning his PhD, he is today Dean of Research and Cultural Engagement at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University. 

Before coming to Wycliffe, he traveled around the United States and did some work in Uruguay. 

Brant also directs an initiative launched by Michael Lloyd.  They are calling it the Renaissance Project or Rebirth 2.0. 

Given the tension in the world, Wycliffe Hall believes that the world is ripe for a new renaissance.  The word means “rebirth.”  

In a Christian context, the idea of rebirth or “born again” is common.  But Wycliffe Hall is embarking on a grand project. They want to be a catalyst for a grand vision of the rebirth of Christian culture and tradition, Christian values, and Christian participation. 

Brant talks about this primarily in three ways: scholarship, leadership, and creativity.  Each of these are crucial if they want to influence culture. 

Scholarship is important because it is influential on culture.  What happens in the university trickles down to culture. 

Leadership is important for various reasons.  But we can think especially of business and politics.

Creativity is key as well because artists, poets, musicians, and filmmakers tell stories that can shape us in valuable ways. 

More Resources

For Michael Lloyd’s podcast, “Truth, Culture, and Rebirth,” click here.

Jonathan Brant’s book: Running into No Man’s Land – The Wisdom of Woodbine Williean

Jonathan Brant’s book: Guide to Knowing God

For information about Wycliffe Hall, Oxford click here.

For a transcript of this episode click here.

More Resources

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

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John Walton was recently at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston.  He addressed a packed house on a topic related to the book of Daniel. 

Recently, he and Dr. Aubrey Buster, a colleague from Wheaton College, have been working on a commentary on the visionary prophet.

John talked with David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcasts about another book he published, The Lost World of the Prophets.

Dr. John Walton is a well known Old Testament scholar.  He retired recently from Wheaton College and was named Professor of Old Testament Emeritus at Wheaton College. 

John spent the better part of nineteen years teaching there.  He also taught at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for nearly twenty years. 

Dr. Walton has spent a career helping us understand that to interpret the Bible well you must interpret it against the background of the times, language and culture of the people to whom it was originally addressed.  

He has a series of “Lost World” books demonstrating the value of knowing the culture.

John’s most recent book is The Lost World of the Prophets. It does for the writing prophets what The Lost World of Genesis did for the first book of the Bible.  And there have been others.

Walton believes many pigeon-hole the prophets into people who merely predicted future events.  Often at a distance. 

But when prophecy is understood against the times and history of when they were speaking or writing, prophecy takes on a different character. 

As with his other “Lost World” books, he divides the chapters into a number of propositions about the prophets and the seemingly odd character of Israel’s prophets. 

If you want to interpret Scripture well, this is a podcast to which you must listen.

For some of John Walton’s “Lost World” books, see below.  These are available as audiobooks and paperback books:

The Lost World of the Prophets: Old Testament Prophecy and Apocalyptic Literature in

Ancient Context

The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate

The Lost World of the Torah: Law as Covenant and Wisdom in Ancient Context

More Resources

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

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In spring 2024 David Capes and his wife, Cathy, were in Yarnton for a conference.  While there, they met with Dr. Michael Lloyd to talk about an initiative at Wycliffe Hall, one of the permanent houses at Oxford. In this podcast David and Michael discuss briefly a huge project to reset the tone of culture. 

Dr. Michael Lloyd is principal of Wycliffe Hall.  He has been with us before on this podcast.  Be sure to check the show notes for links to those podcasts.  He has also been a lecturer at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston.  They are below as well. 

As principal, Michael is tasked with the overall direction of the school.  Wycliffe is an Anglican training college in one of the oldest, most important universities in the world.  Indeed, the world comes to Oxford, and then goes back to their respective countries.

Michael Lloyd believes we are at a crossroads.  People have become fed up with the idea that truth is subjective and relative.  They recognize that relativism is a danger to science and justice.  So, they are looking for something more reasonable.  The Christian faith addresses the question of truth.

The world has witnessed many renaissances.  The most famous, the Italian Renaissance of the late middle ages.  Renaissance means rebirth.  It is the rediscovery of the truth, goodness, and beauty of the classical world. 

Dr. Lloyd believes we need a new rebirth of culture and the Christian faith can speak profoundly to that.  He wants Wycliffe Hall to take a leading role in gathering scholars, artists, and other creatives to reimagine the world through the lens of the Christian faith.

Listen to get a more complete picture of what Michael is proposing.

Click here for a transcript of this podcast.

For Dr. Lloyd’s book Café Theology click here.

To hear his earlier podcast on Jesus, Evil and Suffering on the Stone Chapel Podcasts click here.

And here for a podcast on Wycliff Hall.

To see his lecture at the Lanier Theological Library on Jesus, Satan and the Problem of Suffering click here.

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

Subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any of the great conversations with scholars and church leaders from around the world.

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In May 2024 the Evangelical Foundation for Biblical Research hosted two conferences at Lanier Library and Learning Centre at Yarnton, UK. 

The focus of one of those conferences was on returning the pastoral purpose to the Parousia. It was led by David Capes, Randy Richards and Terry Wilder.

In all there were thirteen papers presented by scholars from North America, Britain, India, and Europe.  One of those papers deals with the “trauma” some experienced in the 1970s and 80s over the teaching, movies, and music associated with the Parousia. 

Jeannine Brown and Carla Dahl joins David Capes on The Stone Chapel Podcasts to discuss their topic.

Jeannine Brown is a well-known and accomplished New Testament Scholar.  She is a New Testament professor at Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.  She’s writes broadly on NT themes.  Her focus is on the Gospels.

Carla Dahl is a retired Professor of Pastoral Care and Spiritual Formation from Bethel Seminary and Luther Seminary in Minnesota.  She continues in psychotherapy private practice.

Both women experienced anxiety over how the Parousia was presented to them.  At the time, they were afraid they’d be left behind. 

Jeannine Brown points out in Jesus’ “sermon” in Matthew 24—25 that the first part has to do with Jesus’ prediction of the fall of the temple. 

Many of those “signs” are taken in dispensational interpretations as signs of the second coming (Parousia).  It is in Matt 24:36 that Jesus’ turns his attention to the return of the Son of Man. 

Larry Norman’s Song I Wish We’d All Be Ready typifies Jesus Music in the 1970s and 80s.  Movies too describe how Jesus would come “like a thief in the night.” 

Carla Dahl discussed how our brains work when there are perceived threats out there.  People, for example, who fear abandonment because of some childhood trauma were especially vulnerable.

Click here for a transcript of this podcast.

Jeannine Brown’s book The Gospels as Stories: A Narrative Approach to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John

Click here to watch Dr. Brown’s participation in a panel discussion at the Lanier Theological Library on the Atonement and the death of Jesus.

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

Subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any of the great conversations with scholars and church leaders from around the world.

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Amy Peeler has been with us before on The Stone Chapel Podcasts.  Her first podcast has two parts and she talked about her book Women and the Gender of God.

There is a link in the show notes below to find those two podcasts.  She joins David Capes today on the podcast to discuss her new commentary on the letter to the Hebrews.

Amy Peeler is the Kenneth T. Wessner Chair of Biblical Studies at Wheaton College. The former holder of that chair was Dr. Doug Moo. 

She earned her PhD at Princeton Theological Seminary and today is ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church.  She serves as associate rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal church in Geneva, IL.

For all practical purposes the letter to the Hebrews is one of the most complicated and robust of biblical books. 

It has attracted Dr. Peeler’s attention since grad school.  She loves it, first, because of its heavy engagement with the Scriptures of Israel.  She also loves it as a historian because of the way you can see Greek influences in the book.

We call it a letter today.  It also has the overtones of a sermon and deep encouragement to a community under stress.

The commentary is part of a new series on Spiritual Formation.  For Dr. Peeler the essential questions are: (1) who is God as revealed in Hebrews? (2) how are we to live in the light of this revelation? (3) how does reading this book change your life? 

Joshua Jipp, professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago, said on social media that this is his all time favorite commentary.  High praise, indeed! 

So if you want to know more about the letter to the Hebrews, listen to this podcast first.  Then find Dr. Peeler’s book.

For a link to Part 1 of her earlier podcast click here.

Part 2 can be found by clicking here.

For a link to her book, Hebrews in the Series Commentary for Christian Formation (Eerdmans 2024), click here.

For a link to her book, Women and the Gender of God (Eerdmans 2022), click here.  

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

Subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any of the great conversations with scholars and church leaders from around the world.

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One of the questions I often get is “How did we get our Bible?”  As you’re going to hear on this podcast, there is not a quick, easy answer. 

It’s an important historical question that had a few questions marks around it.  Dr. Lee McDonald has given a lifetime to the question and has authored more than a dozen books on the topic.  You can find a link to those later in these shownotes.

Dr. McDonald joined David Capes on the Stone Chapel Podcasts to talk about this question.

Lee McDonald earned his PhD at the University of Edinburgh.  Prior to that he earned his masters at Harvard. 

Today he is retired.  But he spent many years as professor of New Testament Studies and President of Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia. 

He has written a number of books on the canon of the Bible.  See the show notes below for some of those.  In retirement he lives in southern California. 

McDonald is interested in the question of how we got our Bible.  But this podcast deals only with part two of the Bible, the New Testament. 

The issues are challenging.  We have minimal historical sources that discuss the canon.  The presence of manuscripts themselves help us somewhat. 

Canon is a technical term for the list of inspired books referred to today as the New Testament.  There are historical forces and factors that led to the development of the canon. 

Capes and McDonald outline a few of these in the podcast.   But there are also theological factors and concerns at the same time.  Geographically, the church was scattered.  So, practices in Ethiopia were different than those in Italy. 

Early Christians were a very bookish people.  They wrote a lot of books.  I suppose you could say they also read a lot of books Some of those books were included in the canon, but many were excluded.  In this podcast Capes and McDonald discuss the criteria for apostolic authorship. 

Click here for a transcript of today’s podcast.

A key book on the question which he wrote with interested lay people in mind:

Formation of the Bible: The Story of the Church’s Canon (Hendrickson, 2012).

A bit more technical is:

The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Baker Academic, 2006)

To see a lecture by Dr. Lee McDonald at the Lanier Theological Library click here.

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

Subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any of the great conversations with scholars and church leaders from around the world.

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Dr. Pablo Deiros gave a lecture at the Lanier Theological Library to an audience of about 300 people in April 2024.  He lectured in his heart language, Spanish, the heart language of a growing number of people in the United States. 

Every year the Lanier Theological Library sponsors a lecture in Spanish.  Pablo stopped by the library to talk with David Capes for this episode of the Stone Chapel Podcasts.

Pablo was born in Paraguay to medial missionaries who were from Argentina.  Today he makes his home in Argentina. 

He has served as a pastor for fifty years.  He has also taught and written books, mainly about the history of the church. 

You can find some of his books at the Lanier Theological Library in the Spanish collection.  For a time he taught at Fuller Seminary in California.

The topic of Dr. Deiros’s lecture at the Lanier Library was the church in the 21st century.  His focus was on Latin America and Hispanic churches in America. 

However, the principles he shared are important for other parts of the world and church too.

Deiros believes we need to rethink the whole idea of church and how we “do” church.  There must be a new orientation to ministry. 

Not so much pastor-centered and denominational.  But with a greater sense of “the priesthood of all believers.” 

This was a Reformation focus that got lost in Christendom.  This means relying less on a professional clergy and relying more on training every gifted person. 

Or everyone, because everyone has a ministry gift.  And this means a greater emphasis on the gifts and power of the Spirit.  There is a lot more here, so just take a listen!

 To watch the video of Dr. Deiros’ lecture in Spanish click here.

Here’s a link to LTL’s Spanish lecture in 2023, click here.

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

Subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any of the great conversations with scholars and church leaders from around the world.

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Dan Steel lives in East Oxford, but he was in Houston recently to talk with various people in the Church Planting Network. 

While he was in Houston, he met David Capes and David invited him to be on the podcast to talk about his new book.

Dan is the ministry program director at Yarnton Manor, the Lanier project four miles north of Oxford.  It is his first time on The Stone Chapel Podcasts. 

He is originally from Oxford and has been in pastoral work, specifically church planting for years.  Dan has learned a thing or two about church planting, the right and wrong ways to approach. 

As a church planter and pastor, he has seen a bit of everything.  God placed it on his heart to write his new book, Wise Church Planting.

Steel’s recent book is about the pitfalls ahead for those who are brave enough to plant a church anywhere in the world.  He used his marketing skills to pull together and analyze the major threats confronting church planters. 

He surveyed people from 27 countries, so these are not just pitfalls for western countries.  They are world-wide.

In this podcast (22 minutes), he gives a brief overview of the book and offers a summary of some of the issues faced by church planters.  Some of these are issues are related to the leaders and the groups itself (internal factors). Others have to do with external pressures and how to negotiate them. 

If you are a church planter or are interested in church planting, you want to hear this podcast.  And if you’re thinking of starting a church, this is a book you need to read.  There is wisdom here.

Resources

For a transcript of this podcast, click here.

Want more Stone Chapel Podcasts on some great topics? Just click here.

You can get information on upcoming lectures at Lanier Theological Library by clicking here

Subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss any of the great conversations with scholars and church leaders from around the world.

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Lynn Cohick serves as provost and dean of academic affairs at Northern Seminary in Chicagoland.  She joins David Capes on The Stone Chapel podcast to talk about her spiritual journey and calling.  She discusses the unique niche Northern Seminary has in theological education.  Recently, the school has created a MA in Women’s Studies and Center for Women in Leadership which they believe will inspire many gifted women to seek training for a variety of leadership positions in their churches. For those interested they can go to www.seminary.edu to learn more.

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Although often thought of as distinct events, the Gospel of John holds together the Incarnation and Passion of Christ dynamically. John Behr explores how they are connected in the Gospel, in such a way that by sharing in the Passion of Christ we, too, continue the Incarnation and bring to completion the project of God announced in Scripture, to make a human being in His image and likeness.

For videos, biographical information, and other resources, go to the archive here.