New Wine into Fresh Wineskins: Contextualizing the Early Christian Confessions-- In the New Testament and Today

by Richard N. Longenecker

Throughout the centuries Christians have sought to understand better the nature of the earliest features of the gospel message, for in that understanding lies the opportunity to make relevant the gospel's power to effect change-in other words, to put new wine into fresh wineskins. Veteran New Testament scholar Richard Longenecker explains how early Christians "contextualized" the gospel message for their hearers just as Christians do today. Specifically, New Wine into Fresh Wineskins focuses on the relationships among the early Christian confessions in the letters of Paul and the Gospels and looks at how the New Testament writers contextualized these confessions for their own hearers. The volume also reflects on how Christian confessions are adapted for later cultures and contexts. For example, the same gospel message both tells of the past and promises a future, it both encourages and admonishes, and it both reveals and conceals the mysteries of God. With careful analysis and appreciation for how early Christians understood Jesus in a variety of situations, Longenecker challenges readers with the always relevant truth of the gospel.

207 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1994

About the author

Richard N. Longenecker is Ramsey Armitage Professor of New Testament, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto. He receivec the B.A. and M.A. degrees from Wheaton College and Wheaton Graduate School of Theology, respectively, and the Ph.D. from New College, University of Edinburgh. His principal publications include Paul, Apostle of Liberty (1964), The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity (1970), The Ministry and Message of Paul (1971), Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (1975), “The Acts of the Apostles” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (1981), and The New Testament Social Ethics for Today (1984).