Adelaide College of Divinity/Flinders University slides

Here are the Keynote slides from my Adelaide College of Divinity and Flinders University Annual Public Lecture yesterday evening in Adelaide on ‘Leadership, lifestyle and the book of Acts’. I’m very grateful to the faculty and staff of ACD, especially Dr Vicky Balabanski, for their  kind invitation and hospitality. I aim here to look at what leadership looks like in Acts, arguing that the primary leadership to attend to is divine—God drives the mission and growth of the believing community in Acts, regularly in spite of human leadership, and frequently against the opposition of some Continue reading →

There’s still time to register for our ‘Cities of God?’ conference at St Mary’s

There’s only a week to go until the ‘Cities of God?’ conference on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 May, and you still have time to register! We’re organising this exciting conference, bringing together Classicists, New Testament scholars and Human Geographers to look at early Christian engagement with and reflection about cities at St Mary’s University, Twickenham (London) as part of our Centre for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible. There is still some space to register, so don’t miss out! The programme and paper abstracts are available, and Continue reading →

Places still available for the Cities of God? conference at St Mary’s University

There are still some places available to register for the excellent ‘Cities of God?’ conference happening at St Mary’s University, Twickenham (London) on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 May. We have an outstanding line-up of speakers from New Zealand, Germany, Norway, USA, and the UK—a mixture of Classicists, New Testament scholars, and Human Geographers—and their papers cover a fascinating range of issues and perspectives on early Christian engagement with and reflection on the ancient urban setting(s). More details here, including the conference programme, abstracts of the papers, and Continue reading →

An evil success! The St Mary’s conference on evil

I’m delighted to report that the first conference organised by the Centre for Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St Mary’s University, Twickenham was a resounding success. About fifty of us met to hear papers and engage in fascinating conversation about the topic of evil across a wide range of texts in the Second Temple and early Christian period. My esteemed colleague Chris Keith had done a masterly job in putting this together. Here are some notes on papers which caught my ear—that’s not to say Continue reading →