Select Works of Luke Timothy Johnson (4 vols.)

In undertaking this fresh inquiry into early Christianity and Greco-Roman paganism, Luke Timothy Johnson begins with a broad definition of religion as a way of life organized around convictions and experiences concerning ultimate power. In the tradition of William James’ Variety of Religious Experience, he identifies four distinct ways of being religious: religion as participation in benefits, as moral transformation, as transcending the world, and as stabilizing the world. Using these criteria as the basis for his exploration of Christianity and paganism, Johnson finds multiple points of similarity in religious sensibility.

Christianity’s failure to adequately come to grips with its first pagan neighbors, Johnson asserts, inhibits any effort to engage positively with adherents of various world religions. This thoughtful and passionate study should help break down the walls between Christianity and other religious traditions.

The letter of James has enjoyed a colorful history, with its background and significance widely debated over the centuries. In this book, an outstanding scholar of the New Testament offers new and selected studies of James that show its roots in antiquity and its importance for Christian history and theology.

Luke Timothy Johnson explores the letter of James from a variety of perspectives. After a general introduction to James, he looks at its history of interpretation. Johnson then examines James’s social and historical situation, its place within Scripture, and its use of the sayings of Jesus. Several exegetical studies take care to place James in the context of Hellenistic moral discourse. Two concluding essays look at the themes of friendship and gender in James.

Johnson’s Brother of Jesus, Friend of God is accessible to general readers serious about Bible study, and church groups will find this volume to be a fruitful entry into an important portion of the New Testament.

“Christians chronically and desperately need prophecy,” says award winning biblical scholar Luke Timothy Johnson.

In this and every age, the Church needs the bold proclamation of God’s transforming vision to challenge its very human tendency toward expediency and self-interest—to jolt it into new insight and energy. For Johnson, the books Luke and Acts provide that much-needed jolt to conventional wisdom. To read Luke-Acts as a literary unit, he says, is to uncover a startling prophetic vision of Jesus and the church—one that imagines a reality very different from the one humans would construct on their own. Johnson identifies in Luke’s writings an ongoing call for today's church, grounded in the prophetic ministry of Jesus Christ, to embody and enact God’s vision for the world.

The Epistle to the Romans is considered to be the classic of Reformation theology. Luke Timothy Johnson, a scholar from the Roman Catholic tradition, invests this commentary with breadth of perspective and clarity of expression. He focuses on understanding the key themes and their relationship to the whole of Pauline writings and the shaping of Christianity.

Paul wrote his letter to the Roman Christians to win their financial support for a new stage in his mission. How could an apostle, unknown by sight to the Roman believers, recommend himself, except by sharing his understanding of how God was at work through the Good News that Paul proclaimed to Jews and Gentiles? The book of Romans starts with a practical goal and becomes a theological masterpiece of great historical importance and of enduring significance to all believers. This fresh reading of Romans pays close attention to Paul’s theological argument as it unfolds.

Johnson shows how Paul understands “righteousness by faith” as the faith of the human person Jesus, how “salvation” means inclusion in God’s people, and how the work of the Holy Spirit transforms human consciousness so that believers can share with each other the faith and the love shown them by Jesus.