A History of Christian Theology

Taught by God: Brandon Smith on Reading Scripture Like the Early ChurchFor most of church history, Christians read the Bible very differently than modern scholars do — and Dr. Brandon D. Smith thinks the modern church has lost something important in the trade. In this episode, Chad sits down with Smith, chair of theology at Oklahoma Baptist University, to talk about recovering the interpretive instincts of the early church for readers today.Brandon and Chad work through his book Taught by God: Ancient Hermeneutics for the Modern Church. Rather than pitching one more interpretive “method,” Smith argues that premodern exegetes — from Irenaeus and Athanasius to Aquinas and Calvin — shared a set of sensibilities: attention to the letter and history of the text, a conviction about the theological and Christological unity of all Scripture, and the aim of personal and ecclesial communion with God. They discuss what it means to read Scripture as a spiritual exercise rather than mere information-gathering, where allegory helps and where it goes wrong, how trinitarian and creedal faith shapes interpretation, and what evangelicals stand to gain by reading in communion with the saints who came before them.Dr. Brandon D. Smith (PhD, Ridley College, Melbourne) is chair of the Herschel H. Hobbs School of Theology & Ministry and associate professor of theology and early Christianity at Oklahoma Baptist University. A co-founder of the Center for Baptist Renewal and host of the Church Grammar podcast, he is the author or editor of several books, including The Biblical Trinity, The Trinity in the Canon, and Beholding the Triune God.Links: 🎙️ Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AHOCT 🌐 A History of Christian Theology: https://www.ahistoryofchristiantheology.com 📖 Taught by God (B&H Academic): https://www.christianbook.com/taught-ancient-hermeneutics-modern-church-ebook/9781087752747/pd/128903EB 👤 Dr. Brandon D. Smith at Oklahoma Baptist University: https://www.okbu.edu/directory/brandon-smith 𝕏 Follow the podcast: @theologyxian | 📘 facebook.com/ahistoryofchristiantheology

The Four Senses of Scripture: Patrick Schreiner on Recovering the Church's Ancient Way of Reading the BibleFor nearly 1,700 years, Christians read the Bible through four interwoven lenses — the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the eschatological — a framework known as the quadriga. Then modern hermeneutics largely set it aside in favor of the grammatical-historical method alone. In this episode, Chad sits down with Dr. Patrick Schreiner of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to ask what the church lost in that trade, and whether it can be recovered.Patrick and Chad work through his new book, The Four Senses of Scripture: Learning from Ancient Ways of Reading the Bible. Schreiner is careful to say the modern method isn't wrong — it's incomplete. They walk through each of the four senses: the literal (grammatical-historical), the allegorical (Christological), the tropological (moral), and the anagogical (eschatological), and discuss how the early church read the Old Testament through Christ, why the fourfold approach preserved the radical unity of Scripture, and how holding the senses in conversation with one another might enrich preaching and Bible reading today. The conversation takes up the standard objections to allegory as well — and how a "medieval mind" can serve modern readers without abandoning the gains of critical scholarship.Dr. Patrick Schreiner (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is associate professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City. He is the author of numerous books, including Matthew, Disciple and Scribe, The Transfiguration of Christ, and The Ascension of Christ. The Four Senses of Scripture (Baker Academic) includes a foreword by Jonathan T. Pennington.Links: 🎙️ Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AHOCT 🌐 A History of Christian Theology: https://www.ahistoryofchristiantheology.com 📖 The Four Senses of Scripture (Baker Academic): https://bakeracademic.com/products/9781540968791_the-four-senses-of-scripture 👤 Dr. Patrick Schreiner on X: https://x.com/pj_schreiner 𝕏 Follow the podcast: @theologyxian | 📘 facebook.com/ahistoryofchristiantheology

James Revisited: Brandon Crowe on the Theology of the Letter of JamesThe letter of James has a reputation problem. Luther famously called it an "epistle of straw," and it's long been treated as the New Testament's odd cousin — a collection of practical maxims light on theology and hard to square with Paul on faith and works. In this episode, Chad sits down with Dr. Brandon Crowe, professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, to make the case that this neglect has cost the church one of Scripture's richest theological voices.Brandon and Chad work through his book James Revisited: Christology and Biblical Theology in the Letter of James, which reads the epistle not as an outlier but as a text deeply woven into the whole canon — one that refracts the Old Testament through the teaching of Jesus to call believers toward maturity. They discuss James's often-overlooked Christology, the perennial question of faith and works and how it relates to Paul, the place of the law for Christians (fulfilled in Christ yet still abiding), the kingdom of God, and the letter's themes of perfection, hypocrisy, and eschatology. Along the way they take up why the General Epistles as a whole tend to get sidelined, and what preachers and readers gain by giving James a fresh and careful hearing.< cite index="22-1">Rev. Dr. Brandon Crowe (PhD, University of Edinburgh) is professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary and book review editor for the Westminster Theological Journal.</cite> < cite index="22-1">An ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, his research centers on biblical theology, the Gospels, and the General Epistles.</cite> He is the author of numerous books, including The Last Adam, The Path of Faith, and Why Did Jesus Live a Perfect Life?Links: 🎙️ Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AHOCT 🌐 A History of Christian Theology: https://www.ahistoryofchristiantheology.com 📖 James Revisited (Westminster Bookstore): https://www.wtsbooks.com/products/james-revisited-christology-and-biblical-theology-in-the-letter-of-james-9781540971357 👤 Dr. Brandon Crowe at Westminster: https://faculty.wts.edu/faculty/crowe/ 𝕏 Follow the podcast: @theologyxian | 📘 facebook.com/ahistoryofchristiantheology

Southern Shepherds, Savage Wolves: Otis Pickett on Presbyterian Missionaries, Race, and the Antebellum SouthWhy is Sunday morning still one of the most segregated hours in American life? That question — sparked by a line from Martin Luther King Jr. that Dr. Otis Pickett encountered in seminary — set him on a twenty-year search through the archives. In this episode, Chad sits down with Dr. Otis Westbrook Pickett Sr., University Historian at Clemson University, to discuss his first book, Southern Shepherds, Savage Wolves: Presbyterian Domestic Missionaries and Race in South Carolina, 1802–1874.Otis and Chad examine the nineteenth-century Presbyterian missionaries — most prominently John Lafayette Girardeau and T. C. Stuart — who worked to bring enslaved and later freed men and women into the life of the church, and who faltered when that calling collided with the racial hierarchy of a slaveholding society. The conversation traces how theology and ecclesiology shaped interracial encounter within the Presbyterian church and in Southern society more broadly, the uneasy coexistence of enslavement and "ecclesiastical rights," and the role religion played in shaping both slavery and Native American removal — along with how these ideas fared through the Civil War and helped lay the groundwork for the segregation that followed.Dr. Otis Westbrook Pickett Sr. is University Historian and clinical assistant professor in the College of Education at Clemson University. He holds an MA from Covenant Theological Seminary, an MA in history from the College of Charleston, and a PhD in history from the University of Mississippi. He is also co-founder and co-director of the Prison to College Pipeline Program, the first program in Mississippi to offer tuition-free, credit-bearing college courses to incarcerated students. AmazonLinks: 🎙️ Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AHOCT 🌐 A History of Christian Theology: https://www.ahistoryofchristiantheology.com 📖 Southern Shepherds, Savage Wolves (USC Press): https://uscpress.com/Southern-Shepherds-Savage-Wolves 📚 Read it free via Open Carolina: https://manifold.sc.edu/projects/southern-shepherds 👤 Dr. Otis Pickett at Clemson: https://www.clemson.edu/cah/about/facultybio.html?id=6273 𝕏 Follow the podcast: @theologyxian | 📘 facebook.com/ahistoryofchristiantheology

C. S. Lewis and the Bible: Leslie Baynes on Imagination, Interpretation, and ScriptureC. S. Lewis is one of the most beloved Christian writers of the twentieth century — but how did he actually read the Bible? In this episode, Chad sits down with Dr. Leslie Baynes, New Testament scholar at Missouri State University, to discuss her book Between Interpretation and Imagination: C. S. Lewis and the Bible — the first full-length study by a biblical scholar of how Lewis interpreted and used Scripture.Leslie and Chad explore the never-before-published notes Lewis scribbled in the margins of his own books, the thinkers who shaped his approach to the Bible, and where Lewis read Scripture literally (the resurrection) and where he did not (Jonah). Along the way they talk about Lewis's famous "Liar, Lunatic, Lord" argument, his imaginative theology, and what Leslie discovered during her time as scholar-in-residence at the Kilns, Lewis's home outside Oxford.Dr. Leslie Baynes (PhD, University of Notre Dame) is Associate Professor of New Testament and Second Temple Judaism at Missouri State University. A scholar of ancient apocalyptic literature — especially 1 Enoch and the Book of Revelation — and of C. S. Lewis, she has served as a translator for the New American Bible Revised Edition and as an Inklings Project Fellow.Links: 🎙️ Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AHOCT 🌐 A History of Christian Theology: https://www.ahistoryofchristiantheology.com 📖 Between Interpretation and Imagination: C. S. Lewis and the Bible: https://www.lesliebaynes.com 👤 Dr. Leslie Baynes at Missouri State University: https://www.missouristate.edu/relst/lbaynes.aspx 𝕏 Follow the podcast: @theologyxian | 📘 facebook.com/ahistoryofchristiantheology