The Transforming Word Series, Volume 5: Letters to Early Churches: From Romans to Revelation

by Mark W. Hamilton, Kenneth L. Cukrowski (Contributor), Nancy Wilhite Shankle (Contributor)

See how the earliest Christians lived out their story.

As Christianity grew, Christians sought to support unity, communication, pastoral care, and teaching through letter writing. Volume 5 of the Transforming Word Series offers probing insight into the first century and its world, showing how you can apply this important portion of God’s Word to your daily life.

Kindle Edition

Published October 22, 2022

Reviews

[Kristjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the last book of a five (5) volume set with a basic commentary on the Books of the Holy Bible. Organized the same way as the previous four (4) books, this volume introduces the Letters of the New Testament following the Gospels and Acts. The first three (3) chapters give an overview, with chapter three (3) being the odd man out covering the intersection of Religion and Science in a rather confusing mashup (this is the weakest chapter of the book). After then, the work dives into each of the individual letters, starting with Romans. Much like the third volume covering the Prophets were the biblical books are also fairly short, each chapter is also very short with only a general overview of the context and theology of the book examined. As with the entire set, these are all from the specific point of view represented by the Stone/Campbell Restorationist tradition with little treatment of any opposing views. It is in short a good place to start, but I continue to recommend using a more detailed commentary with (or after) this work. Some of the individual chapters are a tad repetitive, which was not too surprising given that some of the contributors write about multiple letters. The standard chapter organization of Context, Commentary/Exegesis, Theological Reflections, For Further Study ad Works Cited was not as effective because of how small some of the letters were. As something of a completionist I was very happy with the series as a whole and while not the strongest in the series, this was still vert satisfactory.

~ Letters to Early Churches
~ Greco-Roman New Testament Backgrounds
~ Religion & Science
~ Romans
~ 1 Corinthians
~ 2 Corinthians
~ Galatians
~ Ephesians
~ Philippians
~ Colossians
~ 1 Thessalonians
~ 2 Thessalonians
~ 1 Timothy
~ 2 Timothy
~ Titus
~ Philemon
~ Hebrews
~ James
~ 1 Peter
~ 2 Peter
~ 1 John
~ 2 John
~ 3 John
~ Jude
~ Revelation

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#LettersToEarlyChurches #TheTransformingWordSeries #NetGalley.

[Beth SHULAM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Am easy to read commentary from Biblical scholar Mark Hamilton. This installment focuses on the letters of the New Testament through to revelation. As always, excellent scholarship and insight.