Episode 369 : Jono Linebaugh - The Word of the Cross

Published: Sept. 2, 2022, 8:28 p.m.

b"Our guest today is my new friend, Jono Linebaugh who came on to talk about his new book, The Word of the Cross.

This collection of Jonathan Linebaugh's most important work on Paul explores the merciful surprise at the heart of Paul's gospel: a grace that, while strange and weak in worldly terms, is nothing less than the power of God, full of comfort and promise. Through twelve messages - two of them new - Linebaugh contextualizes and interprets key Pauline passages, does comparative readings of Paul in conversation with early Jewish tests, and enters into dialogue with Reformation theologians such as Martin Luther and Thomas Cranmer. Thorough and multifaceted, Linebaugh's work is at once exegetical, historical, and theological in scope. Accordingly, The Word of the Cross is a rigorous scholarly enterprise that takes seriously Paul's claim that the good news of Jesus Christ, despite appearing scandalous and foolish, in fact contradicts and overcomes the conditions of the possible through the power of God.

Jonathan A. Linebaugh is associate professor of New Testament theology at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Jesus College Cambridge. He is the author of God, Grace and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul's Letter to the Romans; editor of God's Two Words: Law and Gospel in the Lutheran and Reformed Traditions."