Challenging The Traditional Interpretations Of Justification By Faith Part 1

This volume is the first of a two-part work that evaluates the teaching of justification by faith from the early church to modern times in light of the Scriptures and the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. Part 1 begins with a thorough presentation of the evaluative standard by which the authors will measure the teachings of the various Christian traditions. Then, following a historical overview of justification by faith in the major traditions, they proceed to give a detailed assessment of the doctrine as taught in the patristic era, in the medieval era, and by Martin Luther at the inception of the Protestant Reformation. The volume aims to point out the shortcomings and contributions of the first 1,500 years of the church’s teaching on justification by faith and to offer a fresh understanding of this foundational truth of the Christian faith.

This volume is the second of a two-part work that evaluates the teaching of justification by faith from the early church to modern times in light of the Scriptures and the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. Part 2 continues the evaluation begun in part 1 by examining the teaching of justification by faith from the mid-sixteenth century to the twenty-first century. Throughout these centuries numerous accounts of this foundational Christian truth have been offered, and many controversies have been and continue to be fought. Beginning with the Lutheran tradition in the opening chapter, the authors identify the contributions and shortcomings of each of the major Christian traditions. While many of the Christian traditions have contributed some light to the church's understanding of justification by faith, the authors contend that most of them have fallen short of the truth that in justification God approves the believers solely on account of their union with Christ as righteousness through faith.

This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains a complete record of the twelve messages given as the crystallization-study of 1 and 2 Kings in the July 2022 semiannual training, held in Anaheim, California. The Key Statements on the following page embody and summarize the crucial truths and main burdens covered in these twelve messages.The Reports and Announcements section contains "An Update concerning Europe," a "Summer 2022 Mass Distribution Update," and important information concerning upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link to information on similar events in Europe and Israel.

In the first of a three-volume work, Daniel Patte presents three very different critical exegeses of Romans 1, arguing that all are equally legitimate and hermeneutically plausible. By expanding upon and respecting the exegeses of many erudite scholars of the last two centuries, Patte concludes that three families of vastly different critical interpretations are fully justified: traditional philological and epistolary studies; rhetorical and sociocultural studies; and figurative studies of the “coherence” of Paul's teaching. Arising from a long-standing interdisciplinary investigation of many receptions of Romans in light of recent diversification of exegetical methodologies, Patte concludes that the interpretation of a scriptural text necessarily involves making a choice among equally legitimate and plausible alternatives; and second, that this choice is always contextual and ethical. When these points are denied (by failing to respect the interpretations of others and absolutizing one's interpretation), instead of being a scriptural blessing, Romans becomes a deadly weapon against others – heretics, Jews (Shoah), and many others. The result is a threefold commentary of Romans 1 that is unique in its scope and thorough-going exegesis.

Here is a concise, inviting introduction to the greatest of the early Christian missionaries, the Apostle Paul--his life, his letters, his thinking--and the life-transforming gospel he proclaimed. Readers will find this book academically stimulating, theologically rich, and personally challenging. It highlights the ways Paul's life and thinking differ from--and challenge--the life and thinking of Christians today. Written in nontechnical language for both Christian students and general Christian readers, this book--the result of a lifetime of studying and teaching Paul's letters--will be helpful to all students and teachers of the Bible who want a deeper understanding of Paul, his theology, and the implications of his powerful letters for Christians today.

John Owen presents one of the most rigorous defenses of the Reformed doctrine of justification ever written. This reprint of The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, taken from the 19th century edition produced by the Presbyterian Board of Publications, will serve as a welcome improvement for many readers. Latin and Greek quotations have been moved to footnotes, and English translations are given for those large blocks of material that Owen left untranslated. It also contains a new introductory essay by Carl Trueman, which analyzes Owen's treatment of justification in light of the highly charged debates of his day. While Owen's work is technical and challenging, this edition is an effort to make his profound exposition more manageable.

Two closely related questions receive distinctively theological answers in this study: What is truth? and How can we tell whether what we have said is true? Bruce Marshall proposes that the Christian community's identification of God as the Trinity serves as the key to a theologically adequate treatment of these questions. Professor Marshall argues on trinitarian grounds that the Christian way of identifying God ought to have unrestricted primacy when it comes to the justification of belief, and he proposes a trinitarian way of reshaping the concept of truth. Direct engagement with the current philosophical debate about truth, meaning and belief (in Quine and others) suggests that a trinitarian account of epistemic justification and truth is also more philosophically compelling than the approaches generally favoured in modern theology, as exemplified by Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Rahner and others. Marshall offers a contemporary way of conceiving of the Christian God as 'the truth'.