Kent Brower is vice-principal and senior lecturer in Biblical Studies at Nazarene Theological College, Manchester. He is currently working on the Two Horizons New Testament Commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians (Eerdmans).
Stephen Barton
-- Durham University
"Holiness and Ecclesiology in the New Testament represents a new
and much better way of doing what is conventionally called 'the
theology and ethics of the New Testament.' In twenty essays --
which are scholarly yet accessible -- almost all the books of the
New Testament are examined for what they display of a holy God who
calls a people to holiness. A common critique linking the essays is
the inadequacy of the modern tendency to reduce holiness to matters
of the private piety of the autonomous self. In contrast, the New
Testament texts are shown to be an urgent invitation to Christians
past and present to rediscover and embody the public dimensions of
the Christian calling to holiness in church and society. This book
is the only New Testament study I know that makes the vital link
between holiness and sociality so consistently. I commend it
strongly." Dan Boone
-- Trevecca Nazarene University
"Rather than lowering a single definition of holiness onto the
texts of the New Testament, the authors of Holiness and
Ecclesiology in the New Testament have allowed each biblical writer
and context to offer its own contribution. As a result, the church
is called to embody holiness in each unique situation. From Jewish
purity systems to ritual cleaning to circumcision to idolatrous
feasts to sexual practices to empire protest, the church is called
to experience and express the holiness of God as her guiding
narrative and defining characteristic. The corporate understanding
of ecclesial holiness found in this book will challenge those who
have gone looking for proof texts to prop up a one-two sermonic
punch of personal experience. Favorite texts will need to be
reconsidered in light of the broader call of the people of God to
holiness . . . which will make us not less holy but more publicly
holy, more body-practiced holy, more engaged-with-the-world holy.
The stories of Israel and Jesus remain the dominant narratives that
shape the church, and the triune God remains the central character
in a narrative of self-emptying, cruciform love. This expression of
the holy God sends the church to the margins of the world where
people need justice, compassion, mercy, and peace. This is a new
book on my preaching shelf."
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