'Jason Whitlark has overcome what many have regarded as an
insoluble problem with regard to Hebrews: a way in which it can be
understood in the context of the overwhelming emphasis on grace in
the New Testament epistolary literature. His use of the category of
divine enablement makes possible a new and refreshing reading.'
-- Sharyn Dowd is Professor for Adult Spiritual Formation and
Mission Engagement, First Baptist Church, Decatur, Georgia.
'In Enabling Fidelity to God, Jason Whitlark has produced
a stunningly fresh reading of Hebrews in its larger Greco-Roman
context. Recent scholarship tends to read the soteriology of
Hebrews as reflecting, indeed embracing, the Greco-Roman practice
of benefaction and the assumptions of reciprocity that undergird
it. In the reading of Hebrews, humans respond in gratitude to God's
merciful and beneficent acts in an interdependent, mutually
reinforcing circle of salvation. Through a remarkable mastery of
primary and secondary sources, Whitlark shows rather that Hebrews,
in a direct challenge to the reciprocity system, argues that human
fidelity to God is utterly and absolutely predicated upon God's
divine enablement. Not everyone will agree will Whitlark's thesis,
but students of Hebrews and New Testament soteriology must
certainly come to terms with it.'
-- Mikeal Parsons is Kidd L. and Buna Hitchcock Macon Chair in
Religion and Professor of New Testament, Baylor University, Waco,
Texas 'This is a fresh and provocative new reading of Hebrews that
moves the homily from the periphery of New Testament soteriology
into the early Christian mainstream. This is an exercise in
biblical theology not to be missed.'
-- Charles H. Talbert, Distinguished Professor of Religion in New
Testament Studies, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.
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