The most-recent Themelios is online here (and available here as a single pdf), containing the below articles.
Editorial
J.V. Fesko
The Council of Nicaea and Christian Character
Fesko argues that the Nicene Creed required moral and ethical virtues to produce its theological orthodoxy. In simple terms, to be a good theologian requires godliness.
Strange Times
Daniel Strange
Hiding in Plain Sight
Strange reflects on the cultural fascination with horror films and their presentation of the supernatural. Biblical reality gives us a metaphysic of the Creator-creature distinction which is capacious enough to include the material and the spiritual without confusing them and without divinising them, the blurring of the Creator-creature distinction (otherwise known as idolatry).
Jan Sklar
Lamb of the Free: A Review Article
In Lamb of the Free, Andrew Rillera argues from both the Old Testament and the New Testament that Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) is an unbiblical idea. This review considers seven key claims Rillera uses to support his arguments. It focuses on whether they successfully undercut the idea of PSA and provides positive support for seeing PSA as a biblical idea.
Samuel Beh
Sent by a Sending God: Tracing the Verbal Thread of Sending through Luke-Acts
This article establishes the language of “sending” as a significant verbal thread throughout Luke-Acts. By tracing Luke’s use of the sending word group (ἀποστέλλω, πέμπω, ἐκβάλλω, and ἀπολύω), the study demonstrates that Luke frames God’s saving purposes as advancing through a succession of divinely sent messengers, culminating in Jesus, the apostles, and the Spirit-empowered church. The insights provide an important interpretive lens for understanding Luke’s theology of mission and the church’s mandate to participate in the divine mission today.
Paul S. Jeon
The Heart Knows but Will Not Yield: Affective Suppression and the Noetic Effects of Sin in Romans 1:32
This article argues that Romans 1:32 offers a crucial entry point for understanding the affective dimensions of the noetic effects of sin in Pauline theology. Rather than depicting unbelief as a mere failure of knowledge, Paul presents it as a morally culpable resistance to a truth that is already intuited. Drawing on N. Gray Sutanto’s retrieval of the affective model of general revelation, this study reinterprets the sensus divinitatis as a dispositional awareness rooted in dependence and shaped by affective response. The analysis of Romans 1:32 – especially its use of ἐπιγνόντες and συνευδοκοῦσιν—shows that Paul’s concern is not ignorance but a willful suppression motivated by fear, shame, and disordered desire. This reframing challenges dominant rationalist interpretations of the noetic effects of sin and aligns with the broader Reformed tradition. The article concludes by exploring the implications of this affective reading for theological anthropology, apologetics, and Christian witness, arguing that the remedy to such suppression lies not merely in argumentation but in the proclamation of the gospel—a message that convicts the heart and heals through grace.
Kenneth Berding
Echoes of Cain in James 3:7–5:9 and the Problem of James 4:5
James undergirds his exhortations in the middle portion of his letter (3:7–5:9) with a narrative subtext—namely, the early chapters of Genesis, and, in particular, the person and story of Cain as it would have been understood in James’s interpretive environment. An acknowledgment of this subtext resolves most of the interpretive and translational difficulties associated with James 4:5, which should read: “The [human] spirit which he [God] made to dwell in us desires with envy.”
Craig Fredrickson
The Word’s Transforming Work: Sanctification by Scripture in 1 Peter 1:22–2:3
In 1 Peter 1:22–2:3, Peter presents the word of God as the divinely appointed instrument of both regeneration and ongoing sanctification. Souls are purified by obedience to the truth, born again through the living and abiding word, and sustained by an infant-like craving for its pure spiritual milk. Read alongside Calvin, Owen, and Watson, the passage locates the word’s sanctifying power in the union with Christ that Scripture mediates by the Spirit, correcting therapeutic, contemplative, and pragmatic alternatives that displace Scripture from its formative work.Contemporary evangelicalism faces a quiet but urgent crisis of sanctification. While many churches remain committed to justification by faith alone, their approaches to spiritual growth increasingly drift from Scripture’s own design. Therapeutic spirituality, with its focus on emotional healing, and contemplative practices drawn from medieval mysticism now shape much of the discipleship landscape. These trends, though often well-intentioned, mark a subtle departure from the Reformation principle of sola scriptura—not only as the church’s epistemological foundation, but as God’s appointed means for ongoing transformation.
Daniel Kirkpatrick
Will Total Depravity Fall from Grace? A Defense of the Reformed View
The doctrines of grace found in Reformed soteriology are predicated upon an understanding of humanity’s total depravity stemming from original sin. This doctrine is under reevaluation by a group of pastors and scholars concerned about the resurgence of Calvinism in the Southern Baptist Convention and broader evangelical community. This perspective initially gained attention with the 2012 release of A Statement on the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation and has been advanced through subsequent writings from Adam Harwood. By redeveloping this foundational doctrine of sin, this perspective seeks to dismantle the Reformed understandings of election, atonement, and overcoming grace. This article critiques Harwood’s perspective of original sin and seeks to defend the Reformed doctrine of total depravity against this alternative viewpoint.
Joel MacInnes
Wisdom and Folly in Laodicea: Revelation’s Message to the Laodiceans as Wisdom Discourse
This article examines Christ’s message to Laodicea as “wisdom discourse,” arguing that it employs “wisdom forms,” “allusions to wisdom literature,” and addresses “wisdom concerns.” The message highlights wisdom due to the Laodicean church’s lack of it. This study explores potential parallels between the challenges faced by the churches in Colossae and Laodicea, noting similar diagnoses and remedies. Finally, the article examines how the wisdom theme in the message to Laodicea shapes our understanding of the seven messages in the book of Revelation.
Brandon D. Smith
Retrieving Athanasius: Ruled Readings and Trinitarian Exegesis
This essay argues that evangelical retrieval of the Christian tradition finds a particularly fruitful interlocutor in Athanasius of Alexandria, whose “ruled readings” of Scripture and trinitarian exegesis model a canonically-coherent theological hermeneutic. Against lingering Harnackian suspicions that patristic theology represents a Hellenistic corruption of Christianity, the essay demonstrates that Athanasius’s theological reasoning emerges from a deeply scriptural framework centered on the unity of Scripture and scripturally-rooted doctrinal conclusions. This essay concludes by showing the ways in which Athanasius’s interpretive sensibilities can strengthen evangelical biblical, theological, and ecclesial convictions.
Drew Hunter
The Typology of Jonathan Edwards: A Rejoinder to Cameron Schweitzer
Cameron Schweitzer argues that Drew Hunter’s earlier work on Jonathan Edwards’s understanding of typology is too narrowly christological. This rejoinder argues that Hunter’s view is not narrowly christological and that Hunter and Schweitzer’s understanding of Edwards’s typological exegesis are complementary rather than in competition.
Matthew LaMaster
Mimesis and Christian Leaders: A Rhetoric of Authority and Accountability
LaMaster considers Elizabeth Castelli’s contention that Paul’s use of imitative language reinforces power in authority relationships. While Castelli has not found wide acceptance in the New Testament scholarly guild, a dismissal of her thesis contributes to an erosion of any understanding of pastoral authority in the New Testament. This paper demonstrates that Castelli was right in that imitation does reinforce pastoral authority but wrong in her mischaracterization of pastoral authority. In particular, NT mimetic use reinforces authority by limiting authority, sharing power, encouraging costly virtues, and inverting cultural norms of authority.
Dan Allen
Main-Point-Driven: A Clear Methodology for Implementing the Christ-Centered Hermeneutic
This article addresses the need for a clear methodology for implementing the Christ-centered interpretation. Without a consistent process to guard and guide interpreters, illegitimate connections to Jesus are to be expected. Therefore, the Main-Point-Driven methodology provides readers with confidence to discern how every passage directs us to Christ. Special attention is given to asking the right Christ-connection question and unpacking the C-H-R-I-S-T acronym to aid in memorizing the six possible paths to Jesus. The article closes with a brief apologetic of why the Main-Point-Driven methodology is the correct path forward.
Book Reviews
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