Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part Three

This is the third installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary. Part One can be read here and Part Two can be read here.

Craig is co-editing, with Michael Bird, the New Covenant Commentary Series (Wipf & Stock) that is scheduled for publication from 2009 to 2014. He is writing the commentary on Romans for that series. Gordon Fee is contributing the volume on The Revelation.

Reviews and endorsements of Craig's commentary on The Gospel of John can be read here.

JR: Hendrickson Publishers is getting ready to publish your commentary on the Acts of the Apostles --- another massive commentary. What should a 21st-century reader make of the speeches in the Book of Acts, especially an elongated one like Stephen's?

KEENER: You have deliberately highlighted a big debate in Acts scholarship. (I wish you would have asked me a good Pentecostal question about tongues in Acts, or healings --- smile.)

I spend a few chapters of the introduction establishing that Acts is a work of ancient historiography and showing what ancient historiography was. It was of course similar in many respects to the way we write history today, but different. (There were also different kinds of ancient historiography. The elite historians often spiced things up rhetorically --- Josephus does that a lot. But no rhetorical historian would have speeches as short as most of those we find in Acts.)

One difference between ancient and modern historiography is that we want to narrate only clear information, whereas they wanted to really NARRATE their information, to tell a good story. That means that some historians took their genuine information about events and fleshed out scenes. If a historian knew that a speech occurred on an occasion, and something of what the speech was about, the historian would not normally just say something like, "Themistocles advised that they build some ships." They would be more likely to flesh out the speech based on both their direct information and their indirect information, that is, what they could infer that he would have said based on what else they knew. Some historians were more careful with speech material than others (some, in fact, mostly plagiarized earlier historians!) But whereas you can use the genre of Acts to say, "Since this is historiography, Luke reports genuine events," you can't so easily extrapolate from the genre for the speeches.

In fact, Luke does not flesh out the speeches much; most are pretty concise by ancient standards. There are many points where I think we can say Luke knew what was going on in the speeches. In Acts 20, where Luke was likely present in person, I found signs that Luke has condensed what must have been a longer speech (some implicit connections to a particular biblical passage, for example, that Luke never makes explicit). At the same time, no one claims that these speeches are verbatim. Even at the end of Peter's speech in Acts 2, Luke says, "and with many other words" Peter exhorted them. In other words, Luke has selected from the speech; he edits them to make part of his larger work. Everyone expected historians to do that. Also, they didn't have much choice in any case; they had to work with what was remembered of the speeches, or of the kinds of things that the speaker or speakers were known to have said. No one had tape recordings or verbatim transcripts to work from.

So we hear in the speeches both the voice of the speaker and the voice of the inspired author weaving together common gospel themes in these speeches in the Book of Acts. We can learn from the theology on a couple levels. Since my commentary is on Acts itself, my interest is especially in Luke's theological level, but because of the work's historical genre, I believe that he also invites us to hear the voice of the apostolic church.

I have just summarized about 60 pages of material in a few paragraphs and hopefully not done it too much injustice. But you might add the editorial comment regarding my Acts commentary, "and with many other words" he spoke (smile).

NEXT FRIDAY'S QUESTION: You have also written more slender commentaries. Given your proclivity to thoroughness, is that type of writing somewhat frustrating for you?

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part Three

This is the third installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick. You can read Part One here and Part Two here.

Davids earned his Ph. D. at the University of Manchester in England. In the 1970s it was very desirable to study in Manchester because the great scholar, F.F. Bruce, taught there. In a festschrift for Bruce, Professor C. F. D. Moule --- himself a noted scholar --- said, "to think of Fred Bruce is to be assured that the Psalmist's vision can come true: 'Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other [Ps. 85:10].' I know no better example of uncompromising truthfulness wedded to that most excellent gift of charity; Fred Bruce always speaks the truth in love."

JR: Can you give us a thumbnail sketch of your graduate studies under F. F. Bruce at the University of Manchester?

DAVIDS: I was in Manchester while F. F. Bruce was the Rylands Professor of Biblical Studies. It was for me a strange time. First, I am the only person I know of from those years who did not have Bruce as his supervisor – I was assigned to S. S. Smalley, whom I believe Bruce hoped would take over his students after Bruce’s retirement. This actually gave me closer supervision than I would have had under Bruce, for FFB never asked about your work, figuring that you would come to him if you needed help, but Smalley wanted to see my work every 6 weeks or so.

.

The time in Manchester was in some ways a lonely time, for while I did sit lectures in my first year (because I was the first student from Trinity and had a M.Div., which they did not consider a true masters), generally you work alone, seeing fellow students only in the NT Seminar, where you read a paper once a term or so. There are no grades until you turn in your thesis, so three years of work depend on that one document and its oral exam.

.

I did have contact with Bruce at the annual study groups of the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical Research in Cambridge, which I went to yearly. There all present ate together and Bruce presided over the meetings that were held in a large living room like space. I also heard him preach in my Brethren church (that proved that he was very Reformed, but not that he was a good preacher). I did have to sit the lectures that he gave on 2 Corinthians (he told us that all he was going to say was in his recent commentary, and to a large extent he was right, so those who were wise purchased the commentary and annotated the margins). And once I invited him to my house (a very cheeky thing to do, but Americans did it and he would come) – he in turn invited me and my family out to his home in Buxton.

.

Bruce did influence me, but it was by offhand comments, and the atmosphere that he created in the Seminar, and perhaps by the fact that he was Professor of Biblical Studies, not just New Testament. But generally those years were spent in the library or at home in my study.
.

Those years were also very hard on my wife. My father was English (I would learn in my 40’s that I had inherited his citizenship, and now have a British passport among the three that I possess, but at that time I just loved England and loved to be more a part of the country). I fit in well enough. Judy is Texan and did not find that her directness and the English culture fit together very well. (She would very much enjoy Germany.) She was also home with our eldest daughter who was about one year when we arrived in England. Our second daughter was born there and would be about one year when we left. Her alienation from the culture, my constant study, and our not living near any friends meant that our marriage was under a lot of stress before we left. In fact, she says that she believes that our experience of the Spirit in Germany about a year later preserved our marriage.

NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: Your highly-regarded commentary on James' epistle was published in 1982, just as the explosion of evangelical commentary publishing was beginning. From a scholar's point of view, what do make of this explosion?

Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part Two

This is the second installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Craig Keener, Professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary. Part One can be read here.
.
Palmer, just outside Philadelphia in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, is part of Eastern University.
.
Craig is the author of a one-volume commentary on the background of the New Testament. And to date, four more of his commentaries (covering five NT Books) have been published.
.
Four lectures that Craig gave in January at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary can be heard here.
.
JR: In his New Testament Commentary Survey (Baker Academic), Donald Carson gives both the Matthew and John commentaries his prized, "Best Buy", designation. He says the Matthew commentary "in some respects sets new standards" and lauds your commentary on John because "the breadth of learning and the bibliographical richness combine to make the work indispenable for the serious student." However, he does note that in the Matthew commentary "Keener's focus on the socio-historical context comes at the expense of penetrating comment on structure, grammar, and sometimes theology." Was it simply the case that a commentary can only be so big?
.
KEENER: I have answered some of this in question 1, but yes, keeping a commentary from getting too big is a major issue.
.
I am very grateful to Don Carson for his kind comments about the commentaries. His criticism also is a fair one. I don't deal in detail with some of these other issues, especially the grammar and structure (I do deal with theology, but usually as concisely as possible. Sometimes, especially in the Matthew commentary, I was so concise that I was simply citing other passages where the theme recurs.) The reason is to keep the commentary from being too large, and because there are some things I trust that a reader can and should get on their own.
.
If someone loves the Bible, they will read it in context and not take short-cuts. I deal with the passage in its context but I also assume that the reader will examine its context on their own, and come up with their own sermon from the biblical text, etc. If they don't love the Bible, a commentary can't really help them. (I could write sermons for them, but so could 100,000 other people, and there are other commentaries that can do that.)
.
Likewise, regarding grammar: if you have a laptop with a good Bible program it can parse the Greek and Hebrew verbs for you and even tell you everywhere those terms occur in that tense elsewhere in Scripture. Plenty of commentaries do that, and there's no need for me to make the commentary longer (and make my publisher charge more for the cost of the paper) for something your computer can do for you even more conveniently.
.
What I can give is background that you wouldn't get unless you spent a couple decades working through ancient texts. I didn't get it from using a concordance of ancient literature seeing where terms occurred. I got it from reading through ancient sources in context and looking for parallel ideas, not just parallel terms. No concordance can do that. So I wanted to focus on what people could not afford the time to dig out if I didn't make it available to them.
.
My heart has been in ministry--in evangelism, in encouraging the hurting, and so on. I could not justify all the time spent in front of my computer if I didn't know I was providing something new. There are other resources providing other things and I would rather recommend them than reinvent the wheel.
.
NEXT FRIDAY'S QUESTION: Hendrickson Publishers is getting ready to publish your commentary on the Acts of the Apostles --- another massive commentary. What should a 21st-century reader make of the speeches in the Book of Acts, especially an elongated one like Stephen's?

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part Two

This is the second installment of an eight-part interview with Dr. Peter Davids, Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephen's University in New Brunswick. You can read Part One here.

He has written four highly-regarded commentaries (covering seven of the books of the New Testament). Craig Blomberg's review of Davids' commentary on the letters of 2 Peter and Jude can be read here.

JR: What noticeable, practical effects did coming into the fullness of the Spirit have on your ministry?

DAVIDS: I cannot say exactly what effect that experience had upon my ministry other than that it was part of a complex of things God was doing in our lives.

In that year I became involved in Christian social action, discovered the great Christian spiritual tradition that starts with the scripture and reaches through the desert fathers and mothers and continues in folk like Henri Nouwen, Richard Foster, and Dallas Willard today, and had that experience with the Spirit.

Through the influence of my boss I went on my first fasting retreat (a short one for the Germans, for we only had one week). I was seeking the Lord in all of these ways and all of them were bearing fruit in a closer experience of God.

Perhaps the one concrete effect was that during that fasting week I heard the Lord call me to move towards the Episcopal Church. That would become more concrete later, but it was during a listening time that week that it happened.

I might add that at Wiedenest I was in contact with people who had experience in praying for healing such as my boss, Arnim Riemenschneider (who was himself healed of cancer the following year), Roland Brown (an American from Chicago), and Helmut Alvers. And as I talked about it I learned that my boss’ boss, Ernst Schrupp, could also talk about experiences of praying for the healing of others.

That would come into my story later in that I would avoid praying for healing myself until I was ordained, after which God spoke to me, brought Jas 5:14 to mind, and "arranged" that my first "solo" service as an Episcopal priest would be a healing service.

The bottom line is that in Wiedenest the Lord laid the foundation for later ministry. Through relationships with students I make my first moves towards really being a pastor. I learned about spiritual gifts and healing. I did my first teaching – in German.

This would start to come to fruition in my next post, that of one of the founding faculty of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. The most formative experience there was the birth and then death six weeks later (sudden infant death syndrome) of our third daughter. While I do not believe God "sent" that, I do believe he could see it coming, for he spoke to me and prepared me for it.

Through that experience I became far more of a pastor than I even was before. And in and after that experience my wife and to a lesser degree I had a series of experiences with God that were formative in our lives. It was that experience and its aftermath that made me ready for move towards ordination, which took place a year later.

So we both had experiences of the Spirit before 1975, but both experience May 1975 as a significant time of renewal and conscious awareness of the Spirit. Yet it did not result in instant change, at least not in me, but rather was one step towards building me towards the Lord’s goals for my ministry.

NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: "Can you give us a thumbnail sketch of your graduate studies under F. F. Bruce at the University of Manchester?"

Aker: Plenty of sources for Spirit research

While doing some research yesterday, I stumbled across an interesting article by Assemblies of God scholar, Ben Aker.

Writing in Encounter: Journal for Pentecostal Ministry, Aker was celebrating the many books and articles available for preachers who are doing research on the Holy Spirit.

"Several decades ago, a great drought lay upon the land. Thirsty people looked every place for water, but it could not be found. Today, however, water is flowing and readily available as books, articles, and journals pay more attention to the Holy Spirit and related subjects. The level of Evangelical scholarship has moved up, and the effect of the charismatic renewal more than lingers. Pentecostal and charismatic scholars have ascended into the rain clouds of the academy to release much-needed water to the earth below.

For the Pentecostal preacher, abundant secondary sources exist. Through these sources, persistent and concerned students can access references to primary material about the Spirit. These sources also feature prominent hermeneutical methods that demonstrate how scholars deal with the biblical text in its ancient environment. Consequently preachers can observe and learn techniques not used by evangelicals, let alone Pentecostals, some three or four decades ago. They can become aware of what others are thinking, writing, and discussing in colleges, universities, and seminaries. To a great degree, this shows the growth and sophistication of charismatic and Pentecostal traditions. Many of the authors whose work is referred to in this review belong to these traditions and stand tall among biblical scholars."

The remainder of Aker's 2004 article --- which highlights authors like Gordon Fee and Craig Keener --- can be read here.

Now retired, Aker was Professor of New Testament and Exegesis at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. He also wrote the commentary on the Gospel of John for the Life in the Spirit New Testament Commentary (Zondervan), which was featured on this blog July 14. Aker's bio can be read here.

Fridays with Craig Keener ... Part One

When I was boy growing up in a small Pentecostal church, biblical commentaries and seminaries were looked upon with suspicion. What did we need with all that reading and learning if we had the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth?

In fairness, a lot of commentaries and seminaries back then were not worth owning or attending.

But, thankfully, there have been great strides made in both, plus, many believers have come to realize that the better commentary writers are simply part of the teaching ministry of church --- a ministry gift of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Craig Keener, who is a professor of New Testament at Palmer Theological Seminary, is one of those commentary writers giving that enterprise a good name.

He is the author of a one-volume commentary on the background of the New Testament. And to date, four more of his commentaries (covering five NT Books) have been published.

Like Peter Davids, Craig is charismatic in both belief and practice. (In my last blog entry, I noted that he makes clear that, charismatic, in his case, in no way indicates belief in the health-and-wealth gospel. The same is true of Dr. Davids, of course).

For next few weeks, Fridays on this blog will be devoted to an interview with Craig that largely covers his commentary writing.

JR: Your commentaries on Matthew and John were massive (1,040 and 1,636 pages, respectively). How long do you work on commentaries so detailed? And tell us about the work routine you follow when writing commentaries.

KEENER: When God called me to the ministry of His Word, I did not know what that would involve. I assumed I would just go out and preach. He gave me such a hunger that I began reading through the New Testament once a week, or the Bible once a month (though I did not keep that full pace up regularly). One way this changed me was that it forced me to read verses in their context--both of the immediate passage and of the argument of the entire book in which they appeared.

But as I was diving into the Word, I began to notice that passages often assumed customs and situations that the biblical writers didn't need to explain, because their original audiences understood them. I realized that while we had translations to try to make the original Greek and Hebrew message clear to us, we lacked much of the background. Once I realized that we needed background, I started reading a book here and there, only to discover that they did not always agree on details.

Eventually my hunger for the Word became hunger for background, too, so I could understand the Word always better, in greater detail. (There is no spiritual life in the background per se, but once one has it, many biblical texts jump alive in fresh ways with clarity of meaning. Only later did I realize that God had been preparing me for this task even before my conversion. As a boy I was reading Homer, Tacitus, Plato, and various other ancient works. After my conversion, I dropped these things and read only the Bible; when I started working in background, I started with Jewish sources, yet later began to realize that I could use these other sources, too, to help me understand the world that Paul and others were sent to reach.)

That brings me to the answer to your question. Over the years I collected about 100,000 index cards of information, before I began just typing new data into the computer. So I had a massive amount of background information (and information on scholarship) already available. As I collected it, I filed it under the verses where I thought it would be most useful, and also arranged the background material in my mind according to the framework of Scripture. Once I started on a commentary, I would go do more research on what other scholars said about that book (I had already looked through the older commentaries, but would try to get up to date; also, I had already translated and exegeted the book, but I would normally do that again as well). Then I would begin writing, one passage at a time, arranging the background information around the points in the passage that it would help us understand.

I could have actually gone into much more detail in the John and especially Matthew commentaries. I was simply summarizing information, to keep them from getting longer. For example, I might cite five ancient references in a footnote, but those references might represent five different index cards with a full paragraph each going into some detail on what those ancient passages said, plus (if it wasn't something that I would remember offhand) the dates of the speakers (e.g., whether a rabbi was from the second or fifth century can make a difference in how much weight I give to a reference).

As for the work routine: I take out significant time for prayer, for my family, for my students, for eating and sleeping, plus keeping the sabbath. But in the deepest part of my work on a book, most of the rest of my time goes into it; I have to sacrifice a lot of other potential ministry to do it, so I have to keep praying and feeling convinced that God is in this. During times when school is not in session, I might spend as much as sixty hours in a week working on a commentary. John took a number of years (not including the previously collected research; my dissertation was also on John). Acts, recently finished, took roughly six years of full-time work. Even when teaching, I usually try to put in close to 40 hours a week (but most days I don't keep exact count, so maybe it just FEELS like that many hours--smile).

Keener on fasting and persecution

In preparation for an upcoming interview with Dr. Craig Keener, professor of New Testament at Palmer Seminary, I have been reading his book, Gift & Giver: The Holy Spirit in the Church Today (Baker Academic).

It is a delightful blend of scriptural teaching and anecdotal examples of how we can be truly charismatic christians (he makes clear that his use of the word, charismatic, has nothing to do with the prosperity teachings so popular among many known as, charismatic --- "I would rather abandon the title than risk anyone thinking that I advocate such teachings!" To that, I add a hearty, "Amen, Craig!")

The book is truly loaded with nuggets of truth. I wanted to pass along two edifying passages that will hopefully encourage you to read this book. You can sample it here.

.

First, on fasting: "I have found that regular fasting helps me to direct my heart toward God and humble myself before him. When I started, I thought I could fast for a particular prayer request, but eventually I became overwhelmed when I realized I would have to fast every day to cover all the requests! I then changed my approach: I began fasting just as a spiritual discipline before God, to humble my heart so I that could seek to please him more fully. God does not hear my prayers because I fast, but because I am his child who loves him. But I keep my love for him more attentive by spiritual disciplines. Jesus is my atonement and sin offering; fasting serves more like a freewill offering or thank offering, a way I can voluntarily demonstrate further to devotion to him."

.

I had long ago learned to appreciate the scholarship of Dr. Keener. When I read the following passage, my appreciation of him as a brother and elder in the body of Christ significantly deepened:

.

"As a young Christian, I witnessed in some situations in which suffering was likely. Two weeks in a row I had led someone to Christ on Sunday night in a particular part of town; the third week I decided to try it again. Unfortunately, the first person I spoke to was not in a pleasant mood; he descended on me immediately with anger, pummeling me with his fists and kicking me. I managed to get away, with him cursing that he would kill me if he saw me again. On some occasions when I was beaten, the physical pain remained for several days after the beating. Once, however, the Lord mercifully caused me to feel nothing, though my hair was being torn out and my head was being repeatedly slammed against the floor."

.

Yes, there is a lot I can learn from Craig Keener's books.

Mondays with Peter Davids ... Part One

Today we begin an eight-part interview with New Testament scholar, Peter Davids. A new installment will be posted each of the next seven Mondays.

Davids, who earned a Ph.D. from the University of Manchester in England, is also charismatic. An Episcopal priest, he also has ministered in Vineyard Movement churches and conferences.

Dr. Davids currently serves as Professor of Biblical Theology at St. Stephens University in New Brunswick.

His four commentaries (covering seven books of the New Testament) are highly regarded. Consider the words of Donald Carson, Davids' editor for his commentary on 2 Peter and Jude:

"... I am grateful for the work of Peter Davids, whose lifelong interest in the General Epistles is well known and widely respected, and whose mix of service, in both academic and ecclesiastical settings, has doubtless contributed to his ability, on the one hand, to form sharp, independent judgments, and, on the other, to apply them to the contemporary church. In epistles so controverted, no commentary, including this one, will win universal agreement. But all of us will happily acknowledge how much we stand in debt to Dr. Davids." series preface, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, The Pillar New Testament Commentary series (Eerdmans).

JR: When did you and your wife, Judith, come into the fullness of the Spirit?

DAVIDS: In one sense this is a tricky question in that I was called into biblical studies through a vision when I was 16, so certainly had experiences of the Spirit in my teen years, but because of my theological upbringing (Plymouth Brethren) did not label them as the Spirit.

For instance, I would say, "It was as if I had an audible vision." My wife would report similar experiences of the Spirit before she left for university.

Our conscious experience of the Spirit came in stages. While in Wheaton College I experienced a charismatic home group and it dawned on me that nothing happened there that was "unscriptural" (again, my Brethren language).

Later in Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and reinforced in my study in the University of Manchester, I looked at the various texts about the Spirit and could see no reason for gift cessation and thus, being Brethren, I started to desire to experience all that the early church had experienced. But I did not know anyone who could put "hands and feet" to this theoretical conviction and inner desire.

Then in 1973, during my time in Manchester but while serving my two weeks as a chaplain in the US Army Reserve in the active Army base in Aschaffenburg, Germany, I came across the first book to describe practice, Sherrill’s book They Speak with Other Tongues. I spent time before God seeking what was described there, and I had good times with God, but "nothing happened."

In 1975 I was in the middle of my first year after the doctorate, teaching in the Brethren-Baptist Bible College in Germany, Bibelschule Wiedenest (to my knowledge, I am the only non-German to serve there as a full-time teacher) and I was still waiting for God to "zap" me when through a series of circumstances we came into contact with the Fisherfolk from the Church of the Redeemer in Houston, Texas. Both Judy and I liked the life we saw in them, but what they did significantly was give me Michael Harper’s address in England.

Through that contact I obtained books and pamphlets, read them all, ordered more (30 in all). Thus it was while sitting on my balcony one sunny spring day and reading Dennis and Rita Bennett’s The Holy Spirit and You that I realized that I had been asking for the gift of tongues but had been waiting for God (whose presence I often felt) to hit me over the head and make me open my mouth. So I just started speaking according to his leading.

Now we knew about some charismatics in the area, and I was seeking intently enough for a deeper life with God that that same week I had decided that we were going to a Segnungsgottesdienst in Lieberhausen and had set it up complete with babysitter.

My wife was terrified and thought I was "going off the deep end". She went to her spiritual friend, whom she did not know was the leading charismatic student in the school, who suggested they talk to my boss’ wife (I realized that my boss was involved with the Rufe Gemeinschaft, a Baptist charismatic group, but Judy did not – she just thought of them as "safe" and "spiritual").

Judy did, explained her confusion about what was happening to me (she did not know about my "balcony experience" the day before), and not seeking any gift or experience, just peace, asked for prayer. Annalee agreed, the student slipped out of the room and down to my boss’ office and asked him to alert the prayer chain, and Judy ended up "floating" out of that room.

She did not experience any gift – she would experience several in the next week or two, but quietly at her desk or while working around our flat – but she knew the Spirit in a new way.

By the way, we did not go to Lieberhausen that Friday, but to my boss’ home instead for a private time of instruction and prayer. We would go to Lieberhausen and other groups at a later date.

NEXT MONDAY'S QUESTION: "What noticeable, practical effects did coming into the fullness of the Spirit have on your ministry?"

An interview with Thomson Mathew

The fall semester gets underway at Oral Roberts University on Friday, and so I thought it would be good to get a firsthand account on how things are shaping up for the 2008-9 academic year.

And since theology is near and dear to my heart, I could think of no better person to interview than the Dean of the School of Theology and Missions, Thomson Mathew.

With two doctorates, Mathew is also a professor of Pastoral Care at ORU. A bilingual writer, Mathew has three books in print: Ministry Between Miracles (2002), Spirit-Led Ministry in the 21st Century (2004), and What Will Your Tombstone Say? (2008).

JR: How many years have you been the dean of the School of Theology and Missions?

MATHEW: I became dean in January 2000. Prior to that I served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. I have been a part of ORU since 1981 when I was appointed as the first chaplain of the City of Faith Hospital. I joined the teaching faculty of the School of Theology and Missions in 1989.

JR: Is this your dream job?

MATHEW: Yes, I feel called to do this. Having served under all the deans (Drs. James Buskirk, Larry Lea, Paul Chappell, and Jerry Horner) of the School of Theology and Missions in some capacity, I feel that I have had the privilege of being mentored by each of them. When other opportunities have come my way, it was easy for me to say "No" because of this sense of calling.

JR: Even though last year had its share of turmoil for the university, what gave you your greatest joy in 2007-08?

MATHEW: I can list several things that gave me joy. The sense of a new beginning and greater opportunities for the School of Theology and Missions to impact the world. To become a transdenominational school more intentionally. The opportunity to work with Trustees who have a great appreciation for higher level theological education. The Association of Theological Schools (ATS) visited us in February 2008 for a comprehensive site visit. After a thorough review, the ATS Commission on Accrediting granted us the maximum period of accreditation possible, which is ten years (until 2018). It was pure joy to receive such an affirmation during a very turbulent time in the history of the university.

JR: With two lawsuits still pending and the office of president still vacant, it can be assumed that the dust has not settled yet in Tulsa. But, what puts a spring in your step as you head into the new school year?

MATHEW: The possibilities of impacting the global Church in terms of leadership training and possible collaborations with other Pentecostal/Charismatic schools (Regent University, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, and Church of God Theological Seminary) give me great pleasure. The graduate and undergraduate theological programs now being together in the ORU School of Theology and Missions, we have a stronger theological faculty that is capable of offering traditional and non-traditional education. This gives me much optimism.

JR: Businessman Mart Green's $70 million donation set ORU back on sound financial footing. How does that effect the School of Theology and Missions?

MATHEW: This should provide better faculty support including increased pay, retirement benefits, and assistance for scholarly work. Additionally, we should be able to update academic facilities (classrooms, library, Holy Spirit Research Center, etc.), assist students with increased scholarships, and have opportunity to let the world know (PR) about the academic/theological resources we have.

JR: How many undergraduate students are enrolled for this fall?

MATHEW: Current numbers are not available. Last year the School of Theology and Missions had over 900 students majoring in theological disciplines; four hundred forty-five (445) of them were graduate students. (JR Update 8/30/08 --- ORU enrollment is down three percent, according to the Associated Press).

JR: What distinctives are those students going to experience at ORU that they would likely not experience anywhere else?

MATHEW: In the School of Theology and Missions students will experience a distinctively Charismatic transdenominational context. They will receive mission-directed education where learning can take place in an atmosphere open to the Holy Spirit. They will be taught by Spirit-filled scholars who practice their faith and are aware of the needs of the church. They will experience a truly global community. In effect, they will experience the three strengths of the School of Theology and Missions identified by the ATS site visit team: 1) deep commitment to the university's mission; 2) strong theological faculty; and, 3) "dynamic leadership".

JR: Knowing how busy you must be with the beginning of the fall semester just a couple of days away, I very much appreciate you taking this time.

Readers may want to link to Dr. Mathew's Ministry Today article entitled, "We Still Need Seminaries".

The $70 million gift from the Green family has allowed for many renovations on the campus. Photos and videos may be seen at this link.