Douglas Moo is one of the bright lights of evangelical biblical scholarship. Countless pastors and teachers have come to know him through his important 1996 commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans. Seventeen years later, that commentary still stands as one of the finest expositions of Romans available. Indeed, many of us have become students of Paul’s theology and writings through Moo’s careful and faithful scholarship. That is why I was thrilled to see the release of Moo’s new commentary on Galatians for the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Moo has been marinating in Paul’s writings for decades, and this commentary reflects the depth of his long scholarship…

I have been using Olive Tree’s BibleReader app on my iPhone since 2009. But the small size of the iPhone screen meant that I really only used it in a pinch. For regular Bible reading, I have preferred either a physical book or at least a larger screen. About a month ago, I purchased my first iPad. Since then, I’ve been using the Olive Tree reader on a daily basis. It’s clean interface and easy usability makes it my favorite Bible app for mobile devices—even more so for the iPad. For what I use it for, it simply has better features than any of its competitors. So here are my…

In recent years, evangelicals have engaged in a vigorous debate over the doctrine of the Trinity. One group argues that the Father and the Son are equal in authority and power with the Son submitting Himself to the Father only temporarily during the incarnation. Another group argues that the Son’s submission to the Father is functional (not ontological) and eternal. The debate has generated a great deal of discussion not only because it effects the foundational doctrine of God, but also because of its connection to evangelical debates over gender roles. Egalitarians tend to hold the first view of the Trinity while some (though not all) Complementarians hold to the…

I doubt that I will write a full-length review of Michael Bird’s edited volume Four Views on the Apostle Paul, but I will make some remarks on it here and there as I read through it. In the book, the first “view” on Paul is the “reformed reading” by Tom Schreiner. In commenting on Paul’s view of salvation, Schreiner says this: How can God command people to keep his law and to repent and believe when they are utterly unable to do so? Our first task is to explain Paul, even if his worldview is foreign to ours. We must beware of conforming him to our worldview and of only…

Jürgen Moltmann is rightly described as the father of the theology of hope. Whether or not you agree with him on everything (and I don’t), he is a theologian to be reckoned with. His new book Ethics of Hope is an English translation of his 2010 German work Ethik der Hoffnung. Moltmann argues that “hope in the future decisively reconfigures the present and shapes our understanding of central Christian convictions, from creation to New Creation.” In this book, Moltmann applies his theology of hope to the ethics of life, earth ethics, and political ethics. Though I am disappointed that there appears to be very little about sexual ethics, this is…