The Feasts of Repentance: From Luke-Acts to Systematic and Pastoral Theology (New Studies in Biblical Theology, vol. 49 | NSBT)
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
In gospel proclamation today, the critical New Testament element of repentance can be far too often ignored, minimalized, or dismissed. Yet John the Baptist, Jesus himself, and those he commissioned to spread his gospel all spoke of the urgent need to repent.
Michael Ovey was convinced that a gospel without repentance quickly distorts our view of God, ourselves, and each other by undermining grace and ultimately leading to idolatry. Only when we grasp the need for true repentance as consisting of a real change—a transforming work of the Spirit of God—can we fully understand the gospel Jesus preached.
In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Ovey focuses first on the relevant biblical material in Luke–Acts, examining who repents and who does not, and the characters of both groups. He surveys the “feasts of repentance” of Jesus with Levi, the Pharisees, Zaccheus, and in the parable of the Lost Son. He then moves to more systematic-theological aspects of repentance, in relation to idolatry and to salvation, and finally he offers a pastoral theology for the corporate life of the people of God today, with regard to self-righteousness, hypocrisy, humility, forgiveness, and justice.
Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.
Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.
- Examines the meaning and importance of repentance
- Focuses on texts from the Gospels and Acts
- Explores related themes of idolotry, salvation, and justice
- Repentance: Formality, Necessity or Optional Extra?
- Repentants, Unrepentants and Feasts
- Repentance: for Jew and Gentile
- Repentance: Identity and Idolatry
- Repentance: Faith and Salvation
- Repentance: Forgiveness and the People of God
Top Highlights
“Jesus’ ministry is to save the lost and call sinners to repentance” (Page 12)
“Levi’s feasting response to Jesus and the woman’s. Simon has been a poor host, providing no water, no kiss and no anointing (7:44–46). Tannehill rightly observes that ‘In her own strange way the woman supplied all of these things.’24 She is, oddly, ‘hosting’ Jesus at the feast. The sinner does what the Pharisee should have done.” (Pages 20–21)
“Luke itself John the Baptist ‘turns’ the people towards God (Luke 1:16, using epistrephein) and calls Israel to repentance (Luke 3:3, using metanoia). These instances suggest at least substantial overlap between ‘turning’ (epistrephein) and ‘change of mind’ (metanoia). Hence usage of both terms is relevant to our study.” (Page 3)
“The question here is, ‘In what way is repentance a universalizable concept?’ Why call on all men and women to repent, as Paul definitely envisages (Acts 17:30)?” (Page 8)
“John Calvin did, of course, talk in just such terms: ‘[W]ith good reason, the sum of the gospel is held to consist in repentance and forgiveness of sins’.” (Page 2)
Addressing key issues in biblical theology, the works comprising New Studies in Biblical Theology are creative attempts to help Christians better understand their Bibles. The NSBT series is edited by D. A. Carson, aiming to simultaneously instruct and to edify, to interact with current scholarship and to point the way ahead.
Dr. Ovey moves beyond biblical theology to think through the meaning of repentance in both systematic categories and in pastoral theological reflection—and we are all the better for it.
—D. A. Carson
- Title: The Feasts of Repentance: From Luke-Acts to Systematic and Pastoral Theology
- Authors: Michael J. Ovey
- Editor: D. A. Carson
- Series: New Studies in Biblical Theology (NSBT)
- Publisher: IVP
- Publication Date: 2019
- Pages: 192
- Resource Type: Biblical Theology
- Topic: Gospels and Acts