Joash P. Thomas (MACL, Dallas Theological Seminary; MACS, Dallas Theological Seminary; MPS, The George Washington University) is a public theologian and a highly sought-after international speaker. Born and raised in India, he ran a political consulting and lobbying firm in the United States before working as an international human rights advocacy and fundraising leader. He is an ordained deacon in the Diocese of St. Anthony in the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches and lives in a multiethnic community in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Susy Flory is a New York Times best-selling author or coauthor of eighteen books, directs West Coast Christian Writers, and is the founder of Everything Memoir. Her book The Unbreakable Boy became a feature film in wide release in March, 2025. Susy earned a master's degree in New Testament at Northern Seminary and is finishing up her doctoral studies on women writers in the ancient world, including the New Testament era. She lives in Northern California.

Scott Johanningsmeier is a bivocational pastor at Elizabeth Baptist Church in Southern Indiana. He has a bachelor's degree in music technology from Indiana University and a master's degree in New Testament from Northern Seminary. Outside of ministry, he works in the technology installation industry. He and his wife have two daughters.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Tucker S. Ferda is associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. His research interests include the Gospels, the historical Jesus, the history of New Testament research, Second Temple Judaism, eschatology, and hermeneutics. His other publications include the book Jesus, the Gospels, and the Galilean Crisis.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Isaac Soon is Assistant Professor of Early Christianity in the Department of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies. He is the author of A Disabled Apostle: Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul (Oxford University Press, 2023). A graduate of Alphacrucis University College (B.A. in Biblical Studies), Excelsia College (M.Th), the University of Oxford (M.Phil. in New Testament), and Durham University (Ph.D. in Theology and Religion). He received a Durham Doctoral Studentship for his doctoral work and was a finalist for a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Oxford in 2021. From 2021–2023 he was Assistant Professor of Religious Studies (New Testament) at Crandall University, in Moncton, New Brunswick.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Suzanna Krivulskaya (pronounced Soo-ZAH-nah Kree-VOOL-ska-ya) is Associate Professor of History at California State University San Marcos. Originally from Minsk, Belarus, she earned her Bachelor’s degree at LCC International University in Lithuania before moving to the United States to first pursue her Master of Arts in Religion at Yale Divinity School and, later, her Ph.D. in History from the University of Notre Dame. Her scholarship considers the relationship between religion and sexuality in modern U.S. history. Her first book, Disgraced: How Sex Scandals Transformed American Protestantism, recently published by Oxford University Press, is a sweeping religious and cultural history of religion, scandal, and sexuality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through a careful study of some of the most consequential as well as never before written about sex scandals involving American clergy, Suzanna’s book traces how journalists, churches, and the reading public navigated the many publicity crises that followed the revelations of pastoral misdeeds.

Listeners can purchase it at 30% off from Oxford University Press with the discount code AUFLY30. If they read and like the book, I would also appreciate it if they could post a review on Goodreads, Bookstore, or Amazon.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Thomas G. Long is the Bandy Professor of Preaching Emeritus at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. A Presbyterian minister, Dr. Long has served churches in

Georgia and New Jersey. He has taught preaching for over forty years -- at Erskine Theological Seminary, Columbia Theological Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and, from 2000-2015, at Candler. Dr. Long has served as the president of the Academy of Homiletics and as senior homiletics editor of the New Interpreter’s Bible. He has been editor of Theology Today, is currently an associate editor of Journal for Preachers, and serves as an editor-at-large at The Christian Century. He is the author of textbooks on preaching and worship, collections of sermons, and biblical commentaries on Matthew, Hebrews, and the Pastoral Epistles. In 2011, he was awarded the Emory Williams prize for excellence in teaching by Emory University, and in 2015 he received Emory’s “Scholar/Teacher Award,” the top faculty award for scholarship. He delivered the 2006 Lyman Beecher Lectures in Preaching at Yale Divinity School, and these have been published as Preaching from Memory to Hope. His most recent book is Proclaiming the Parables: Preaching and Teaching the Kingdom of God.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Amy Jill Levine (“AJ”) is Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace and University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita, at Vanderbilt. 

Her publications include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi; Jesus for Everyone, Not Just Christians, six children’s books (with Sandy Sasso); The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III, the first biblical commentary by a Jew and an Evangelical); The Jewish Annotated New Testament (co-edited with Marc Brettler), The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (with Marc Brettler), The Pharisees (co-edited with Joseph Sievers), Jesus for Everyone, Not Just Christians, and thirteen edited volumes of the Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature. Her Beginner’s Guide series includes Sermon on the Mount, Light of the World, Entering the Passion of Jesus, The Difficult Words of Jesus, Witness at the Cross, Signs and Wonders, The Gospel of Mark, and The Gospel of John.  

The first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute, an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, the first winner of the Seelisberg Prize awarded by the International Council of Christians and Jews, and the 2023 recipient of the H. Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation from Archbishop of Canterbury, AJ describes herself as an unorthodox member of an Orthodox synagogue and a Yankee Jewish feminist who works to counter biblical interpretations that exclude and oppress. 

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Rob Dalrymple has been a professor, dean, and lead pastor for over 35 years at the college, seminary, and the local church. He currently serves as the Executive Director of Determinetruth ministries, whose vision is to provide a platform of training for pastors, leaders, and members of local churches by providing sound biblical teaching through various mediums to “challenge the church to be the church.” Rob hosts the determinetruth podcast, writes a weekly blog on Patheos, and has scores of videos on the Determinetruth YouTube page on the kingdom of God and justice. He is a leading voice on Scripture and the Middle East in the evangelical world. His writings include Revelation: a Love Story (A commentary on the book of Revelation); Understanding the New Testament and the End Times; Follow the Lamb: A Guide to Reading, Understanding, and Applying the Book of Revelation; as well as Land of Contention: Biblical Narratives and the Struggle for the Holy Land.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Matthew W. Bates (PhD, Notre Dame) is Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary with expertise on the gospel and salvation. His book Why the Gospel? (Eerdmans, 2024) won the Christianity Today award in popular theology and was Outreach magazine’s “Resource of the Year” in theology and Bible. His acclaimed academic titles include Salvation by Allegiance Alone (Baker Academic, 2017) and The Birth of the Trinity (Oxford University Press, 2015). He also co-founded and co-hosts the popular OnScript podcast.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Mark grew up in a non-Christian home, the son of a World War II veteran. At age seventeen he became a Christian in a General Baptist church; within a year he became a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War. Since then, he has had many vocations: as evangelist, a youth minister, a social worker, the founder and director of a Christian peace and justice organization, a pastor, and the director of The London Mennonite Centre, London, England. For sixteen years he was professor of theology at Eastern Mennonite Seminary. He has written or edited eleven books, two about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The first, published by Baker Academic Books in 2013, is Bonhoeffer the Assassin?: Challenging the Myth, Recovering His Call to Peacemaking. In 2022 his book, Discipleship in a World Full of Nazis: Recovering the True Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was published by Cascade Books. His first writing on Christians in Nazi Germany was in 1980. Mark has two adult children and four grandchildren and is married to Mary. He is currently (interim) co-pastor of a Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Jesse Nickel (PhD, University of St Andrews) is on the faculty of Columbia Bible College in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, where he teaches in the biblical studies program. He is the author of The Things that Make for Peace: Jesus and Eschatological Violence (de Grutyer, 2021) and co-editor of It’s About Life: The Formative Power of Scripture (Regent College Publishing, 2023). Jesse is passionate about continuing to get to know Jesus more deeply with both his mind and heart, and teaching others about the already/not-yet, shalom-centred kingdom of God.

Forthcoming publications

• “Eschatological Violence,” in The Oxford Handbook of Bible and Violence, edited by Paul Middleton and Matthew Collins (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Drew J. Strait was baptized Catholic, raised United Methodist, discipled as an Evangelical through Young Life, Reformed through Whitworth College, and became a convinced Anabaptist after a transformative re-reading of the Gospels after the Iraq war. This ecumenical background energizes Strait’s passion to bring together diverse coalitions of Christians to bear witness to God’s mission of reconciliation—to reconcile humans to God and humans to one another. Perpetually overwhelmed by how much he doesn’t know, Strait loves to cultivate engaging spaces to learn alongside his students and listeners.

Forthcoming Publications

• Drew J. Strait, “Dominionism in the Trumpocene: Toward a Biblical Hermeneutic of Resistance.” In On Christian Nationalism: Critical and Theological Perspectives. Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right. Edited by Joan Braune and David M. Gides. New York: Routledge, projected 2025.
• Human Animalization and Fascist Politics: Toward a Homiletic of Resistance against the Dehumanization of Immigrants (this is an essay I wrote during my sabbatical on the Canaanite woman in Matt 15, animal metaphors in the Trumpocene, and animal metaphors for dehumanizing people in Greco-Roman antiquity).
• Next book project will focus on biblical interpretation and human security–reclaiming biblical interpretation as a site for peacebuilding through the church.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Beverly Roberts Gaventa is Helen H.P. Manson Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis Emerita at Princeton Theological Seminary. Her publications include 

When in Romans: An Invitation to Linger with the Gospel according to Paul (Baker Press, 2016), Our Mother Saint Paul (Westminster John Knox, 2007), The Acts of the Apostles (Abingdon, 2003), I and II Thessalonians (Westminster John Knox, 1998), Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (University of South Carolina, 1995; Fortress, 1999), and From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament (Fortress, 1986). 

Romans: A Commentary (Westminster John Knox, 2024).

In 2020, Gaventa received the Burkitt Medal by the British Society for Arts and Humanities, she was president of the Society of Biblical Literature. She has lectured widely in the U.S. as well as in Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.  Dr. Gaventa is a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. and a member of the University Presbyterian Church, Austin, Texas.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Matthew Novenson is the Helen H.P. Manson Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also an honorary fellow at the University of Edinburgh, where previously he held the Chair of Biblical Criticism and Biblical Antiquities. He is the author of Christ among the Messiahs (Oxford University Press, 2012), The Grammar of Messianism (Oxford University Press, 2017), Paul, Then and Now (Eerdmans, 2022), and Paul and Judaism at the End of History (Cambridge University Press, 2024), among other works. 

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

James F. McGrath is Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

A. Andrew Das is the Niebuhr Distinguished Chair and professor of religious studies at Elmhurst University. He is the author or editor of over ten books in biblical studies, including Scriptures, Texts, and Tracings in 2 Corinthians and Philippians and Paul and the Stories of Israel: The Grand Thematic Narratives of Galatians.

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Paul Sloan earned his PhD in New Testament under Drs. Grant Macaskill and David Moffitt from the University of St Andrews in 2016. He currently serves as the Chair of Theology and is Associate Professor of Early Christianity at Houston Christian University. He lives in Houston, TX with his wife, Meg, and three kids. 

Twitter/X @paulthomasloan

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Dr. Elesha J. Coffman is professor of history at Baylor University. She is author of three books, most recently Turning Points in American Church History. She is also editor of Fides et Historia, the journal of the Conference on Faith and History. Her next research project is a history of Religion News Service.

https://bakeracademic.com/p/turning-points-in-american-church-history-elesha-j-coffman/542787

https://scotmcknight.substack.com/

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

https://harperchristianresources.com/nte/

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Beth Allison Barr is the James Vardaman Professor of History at Baylor University. She earned her PhD in Medieval History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is the bestselling author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. She is also a pastor’s wife and mom of two great kids.

https://bethallisonbarr.substack.com/

https://bethallisonbarr.com/

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Jason A. Staples (Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill) is an author, historian, speaker, journalist, voice actor, and former American football coach. He is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at NC State University.

https://www.jasonstaples.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Resurrection-Israel-Gentiles-Israelites/dp/1009376764

Dr. Cohick has published commentaries on Ephesians and Philippians, and books and articles on women in the New Testament, Jews and Christians in the ancient world, and early Christian martyrs. She is President of the Institute for Biblical Research, and is a member of the prestigious Society of New Testament Studies. She serves on several editorial boards of journals and monograph series.

https://www.visualmuseum.gallery/

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Lynn+Cohick&i=stripbooks-intl-ship&crid=Y7P6ZPF4KMXJ&sprefix=lynn+cohick%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C186&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Dr. Lucy Peppiatt has been Principal at WTC since 2013. She teaches courses in Christian doctrine and in spiritual formation. She holds bachelor’s degrees in both English and Theology. She completed her MA in Systematic Theology at King’s College, London, and her PhD through the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Lucy’s research interests are Christ and the Spirit, Charismatic theology, theological anthropology, discipleship, 1 Corinthians, and women in the Bible. Lucy is part of Crossnet Church in Bristol. She is married to Nick Crawley and they have four sons and four daughters-in-law.

• Women and Worship at Corinth
• Unveiling Paul's Women
• Rediscovering Scripture's Vision for Women
• The Imago Dei: Humanity Made in the Image of God

Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

 Nicholas Elder updates our knowledge of the gospels’ media contexts in this myth-busting academic study. Carefully combing through Greco-Roman primary sources, he exposes what we take for granted about ancient reading cultures and offers new and better ways to understand the gospels. These myths include claims that ancients never read silently and that the canonical gospels were all the same type of text. Elder then sheds light on how early Christian communities used the gospels in diverse ways. Scholars of the gospels and classics alike will find Gospel Media an essential companion in understanding ancient media cultures.

Dr. Nick Elder (PhD, Marquette University) is Associate Professor of New Testament at the University of Dubuque, where he teaches undergraduate Bible and Theology courses and New Testament, exegesis, and Greek courses in the theological seminary. He is the author of Gospel Media: Reading, Writing, and Circulating Jesus Traditions (Eerdmans, 2024) and The Media Matrix of Early Jewish and Christian Narrative (Bloomsbury, 2019). He is a father of four, a spouse of one, a home renovator, and a distance runner.

https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Media-Reading-Circulating-Traditions/dp/0802879217

https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Narrative-Library-Testament-Studies/dp/0567688100

Music: Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

Music by Ethereal Vistas by Denis Brodovskyi

1 Peter 2.10-3.7

1 Timothy

2 Timothy

Titus

The Apostle Paul - Letters From Prison

Philippians 1.27-30; 2.1-11

Colossians 1.15-20

Philemon

After the release of their groundbreaking book, A Church Called Tov, which recorded the stories of abuse and toxic church cultures at some of the most prominent churches in the United States, New Testament scholar and blogger for Christianity Today Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer heard from a flood of people who had experienced similar instances of abuse. After all they’ve seen and heard, they still believe it’s possible for church cultures to be transformed from toxic to tov—from oppressive to good.

In Pivot, Scot and Laura help churches to implement practices,establish priorities, and cultivate the Kingdom Gospel-centered qualities that form goodness cultures. Readers will find answers to the four most common questions people have about culture transformation:

1. How can I transform the culture in my church or organization to make it tov?
2. I believe my workplace has unhealthy values. How do I initiate change?
3. How do I unleash a culture of goodness in my ministry?
4. I’m not in a position of church leadership. What are some red flags that indicate a toxic culture, and what can I do if I see them?

Pivot also includes the following practical features:

• The “Tov tool,” a survey to help you discern your organization’s culture and to promote spiritual conversations
• A “getting to work” section at the end of each chapter with questions and next steps for application

Transformation is never easy. But for the sake of the next generation, we must do it.

In particular, they discuss the destabilization and formation of the early Jesus-communities, turning the world upside down, and Paul's Roman citizenship. 

Text Discussed:

Mark 12.13-17

Matthew 17.14-27

Luke 13.31-35

In this book, Scott identified five supply lines, or types of relational support, that pastors and church planters need: Spiritual, Inspirational, Motivational, Interpersonal, and Practical. 

Scott Nelson is a church planter and lead pastor of Covenant Grove Church in Modesto, California. He also serves as a church planting coach and trainer. 

John Blake is an award-winning CNN journalist. Previously, he was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. He has been honored by the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Academy of Religion, the National Association of Black Journalists, and the Religion Communicators Council. A recipient of the GLAAD Media Award, he has spoken at high schools, colleges, symposiums, and in documentaries on race, religion, and politics. Blake is a native of Baltimore, MD, and now lives in Atlanta, GA. https://johnkblake.com

Cody is a graduate of Northern Seminary with a Master in New Testament. He helped Scot write Revelation for the Rest of Us. 

Jon grew up in evangelical Christian circles and has spent the last two decades covering politics, government, culture, and the nature of power. In this book, Jon explores how the evangelical church lost its witness—and how it can regain it by laying aside grasps for power to serve with Christlike love. 

As we begin to learn more about what women actually did in first-century Roman culture, we are able to shine a light on the contributions of women to the first Christian churches. In this conversation, we talk about several women mentioned by Paul who actively participated in the life and leadership of the early church. 

Dr. Beth Felker Jones has written a book called Faithful: A Theology of Sex and as a systematic theologian, she is able to help us understand human sexuality from a theological perspective. Beth recently wrote a piece on her Substack that gave us eight reasons why Butler's piece was bad theology. 

Dr. Lynn Cohick is a New Testament scholar and has written a commentary on Ephesians. She is well-suited to address the Ephesians 5 text Butler's article was based upon. 

Dr. Scot McKnight has written extensively about the culture of the church in his book, A Church Called Tov, which looks closely at themes of abuse. Scot recently responded in his own Substack to Butler's article by giving three considerations about the culture that produced it.

John designed his Book of Revelation to disciple readers into dissidents of the ways of the world and empire. John describes that empire with the term "Babylon." Babylon is a timeless image of empire, militarism, economic exploitation, injustice, and oppression. The Book of Revelation disciples Christians through worship and the courageous challenge of faithful, or allegiant, witness to the slaughtered-Lamb.

Also in this episode is an invitation to learn more about Northern Seminary in a virtual event called Taste of Northern on February 20, 21, and 23. Taste of Northern is an opportunity to attend one of our classes for free, with no strings attached. It's a great way to see if Northern Seminary is the place for you as you consider further education. For more information, visit seminary.edu/taste

We know that ministry can be riddled with challenges and filled with difficulty. In this new podcast, Mark and Tara Beth share their stories of finding hope in ministry. The Pastor's Table podcast is designed to help you embrace your ministry as a gift!

In this episode, Mark and Tara Beth talk about each of their own journeys in ministry and they discuss why pastors need opportunities to gather and discuss the importance of theological integrity. 

Check out Dr. Mark Quanstrom’s new course on Seminary Now: Pastoral Ministry: Calling and Resilience. 

SeminaryNow.com is a streaming video platform with short courses from leading authors and professors. The Pastor’s Table listeners can get 25% off full access to the courses by using the code TPT.

Our theme song for The Pastor’s Table is Radiant by eleven eleven worship. LISTEN NOW on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your music

Lisa is a sociologist, and her research agenda expands her attention to the intersection of religion, gender, and culture to a global frame. 

You can learn more about Lisa Weaver-Swartz and her research by visiting her website: https://lisaweaverswartz.com