Scriptural Works

Greg Camp and Patrick Spencer
  • 4.8 (5)
  • Christianity
  • Biweekly

Hosted by two biblical scholars with diverse career backgrounds, Greg Camp (Sheffield University, Ph.D.) and Patrick Spencer (Durham University, Ph.D.), Scriptural Works focuses on a dynamic exploration of how to read and interpret scripture for greater meaning in today's postmodern world. Each episode unpacks the tools, methods, and insights that can be used to bring scripture alive, whether through their engaging dialogue or through conversations with guest scholars who bring specialized perspectives to particular texts or themes. From ancient contexts to contemporary application, from literary analysis to historical insights, Scriptural Works equips both lay readers and religious leaders with fresh approaches to biblical interpretation. Whether you're a curious reader, a minister seeking fresh perspectives, or anyone interested in developing a deeper grasp of scripture, Scriptural Works provides the intellectual tools and practical approaches to make biblical texts more accessible and meaningful.

  1. 1d ago

    Is Zephaniah a Social Justice Prophet? Rethinking the Day of Wrath | Dr. Julia M. O’Brien | Ep. 37

    Zephaniah opens with one of the most violent scenes in the prophets, a day of wrath that sweeps away birds, fish, and all flesh in an order that runs Genesis 1 in reverse. Is the target Judah’s elites or the whole world? The book never says. Three chapters later, Daughter Zion is singing over her rescue. Most readers split the difference, assigning the judgment to a seventh-century prophet and the hope to later editors. Dr. Julia O’Brien argues for reading the book whole, as a literary work given its final shape in the Persian period by a community asking how its past had brought it to the present. She also questions the popular image of the prophets as heroic lone activists, a picture she traces to nineteenth-century individualism rather than to the biblical text, and shows why Zephaniah never lets judgment and hope settle into separate camps. The historical context and literary design of Zephaniah raise hard questions for anyone who teaches or preaches it. O’Brien takes on the Day of the Lord, the gendered portrait of God as warrior and Jerusalem as rescued daughter, the remnant, the place of Cush in Israelite identity, and the appearance of the Hebrew word Shoah in Zephaniah 1. She challenges the long Christian habit of assigning judgment to Israel and hope to the church, and warns against what she calls biblical ventriloquism, making Scripture speak only for our own causes. Reading the whole text, she insists, is the most radical thing a reader of the Bible can do, and Zephaniah’s three chapters make that possible. Her reading of judgment as the repercussions of human choices, which do not vanish when restoration begins, gives this small book startling force for thinking about environmental catastrophe and the moral work that remains after hope returns. WORKING PREACHER: https://www.workingpreacher.org/authors/julia-m-obrien Oxford Handbook of the Minor Prophets: https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handbook-Prophets-OXFORD-HANDBOOKS/dp/0190673206/ Isaiah 40-66: An Interpretation Bible Commentary: https://www.amazon.com/Isaiah-40-66-Interpretation-Bible-Commentary/dp/066426610X/

    Is Zephaniah a Social Justice Prophet? Rethinking the Day of Wrath | Dr. Julia M. O’Brien | Ep. 37

  2. Oct 19

    Why Nahum Is a Lament: Piles of Slain, Heaps of Corpses | Dr. Fr. Jacob Onyumbe

    The book of Nahum is one of the most neglected texts in the Bible. The Revised Common Lectionary never reads it, the Roman Catholic lectionary uses it once on a weekday, and many commentators have dismissed it as a dangerous book with a violent, vengeful God and perhaps a false prophet. Fr. Dr. Jacob Onyumbe, a Congolese priest and professor of Hebrew and Scripture who grew up amid decades of war in eastern Congo, challenges that verdict. He argues that Nahum is not a gloating celebration of Nineveh’s fall in 612 BC. It is lyric poetry shaped by trauma, best read against Sennacherib’s destruction of Lachish in 701 BC. Bringing together poetic analysis, the Lachish reliefs and Assyrian royal propaganda, ancient Near Eastern city laments, trauma theory, and his own interviews with war survivors in Goma and Bukavu, he shows how the book’s graphic violence works as an indirect lament for Judah’s lost cities. That reframing changes how the theology of Nahum reads. God is not urging Judah toward military revenge. God is the guarantor of hope against an empire that celebrated its own brutality, the one who ensures the perpetrators will not have the last word. Onyumbe also explains how Nahum reworks the oracle against the nations, how collective memory carries violence across generations, why parallels between ancient Judah and the eastern Congo must illuminate rather than flatten each other, and how a contextual biblical hermeneutics of reconciliation can serve communities divided by war. This episode offers a clear way to read, teach, and preach Nahum in its historical context, while recovering a prophet whose words still speak to people who live after violence. Book: Piles of Slain, Heaps of Corpses: Reading Prophetic Poetry and Violence in African Context: https://www.amazon.com/Piles-Slain-Heaps-Corpses-Prophetic/dp/1725268310/ref=sr_1_1 BOOK:

    Why Nahum Is a Lament: Piles of Slain, Heaps of Corpses | Dr. Fr. Jacob Onyumbe

  3. Sep 28

    How Assyria and Babylon Shaped the Seventh-Century Prophets | Dr. Nathan Lovell

    How did Assyria and Babylon shape the seventh-century prophets? Most readers picture Judah under Assyria as a broken vassal waiting for the end. Dr. Nathan Lovell, senior lecturer in Old Testament and Hebrew at George Whitefield College in Cape Town, South Africa, tells a more complicated story. Imperial roads, trade networks, and tribute brought real prosperity to Judah under Manasseh, along with the social inequality the prophets condemn. Kings gives Manasseh's 55-year reign barely twenty verses, every one of them damning. Lovell reframes Isaiah's Immanuel sign as a claim about divine presence under empire, not a riddle about which child it names. He also reads Hezekiah's standoff with Sennacherib in 701 BC as a choice between covenant and Assyrian peace, and he asks why Josiah, the most faithful king in Kings, dies so abruptly at Megiddo as Assyria collapses and Babylon rises to take its place. That historical context changes how the seventh-century prophets read. Lovell shows how Kings functions as literature for a traumatized community, using the remnant to give exiles an identity once land, temple, and Davidic king were gone. He sets Kings beside Chronicles, written under Persian rule, to show how each book shapes Israel's memory for its own audience (only Chronicles lets Manasseh repent), and he explains why Jeremiah and Ezekiel begin to speak of a new covenant after Josiah's reforms fail. For pastors, priests, seminarians, lay leaders, and Bible teachers, this is the essential background for preaching and teaching Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk, Nahum, and Zephaniah, and for tracing the question that drives Israel's literature from Assyria through Babylon and Persia: how does a conquered people keep its covenant identity under empire? CV: https://www.gwc.ac.za/about-us/faculty/dr-nathan-lovell

    How Assyria and Babylon Shaped the Seventh-Century Prophets | Dr. Nathan Lovell

  4. Sep 18

    Paul, Socrates, and Acts 26: Why Luke Echoes Plato's Apology | Jihye Yu | Ep. 34

    What happens when Paul’s defense before King Agrippa in Acts 26 is read alongside Socrates’ speech in Plato’s Apology? New Testament scholar Jihye Yu examines the Greco-Roman rhetorical world behind Luke-Acts, arguing that Paul’s speech is forensic in form but reaches beyond legal defense toward persuasion, witness, and theological interpretation. The conversation explores ethos, divine commissioning, Paul’s Damascus Road account, Agrippa’s response, and the striking phrase “kicking against the goads,” which carries wider Greek literary resonance. Yu shows how Luke reshapes the courtroom scene so that the question is not simply whether Paul is innocent, but whether his mission, resurrection message, and appeal to Israel’s hope are credible—and how the audience will respond. The comparison with Socrates highlights how Luke presents Paul as a public witness under accusation. The discussion then widens to Yu’s research on ancient biography, Gospel genre, and cultural memory. She explains why identifying Matthew and Luke as ancient biographies does not settle how they relate to history, since Greco-Roman biography ranged from historically oriented lives to more imaginative narratives. Yu also connects cultural memory in Deuteronomy with Gospel formation, showing how communities preserve, interpret, and transmit traditions for new settings. Throughout, she argues that the New Testament must be read within both its Jewish scriptural world and its Greco-Roman literary environment. The result is a richer understanding of Acts 26, Luke-Acts, Gospel composition, rhetoric, memory, and the literary sophistication of early Christian texts, with implications for how pastors, teachers, students, and scholars read the Gospels and Acts. JGRCHJ: https://jgrchj.net/volume21/JGRChJ21.4Yu104-29.pdf

    Paul, Socrates, and Acts 26: Why Luke Echoes Plato's Apology | Jihye Yu | Ep. 34

  5. Sep 5

    1 John Wasn’t Settling a Schism. It Was Countercultural Resistance to Rome | Dr. Ahreum Kim | Ep. 33

    1 John has been read for decades as a window into one crisis: a Johannine community splitting apart over secession, docetism, and rival claims to truth. Dr. Ahreum Kim's work on the letter's Greco-Roman background argues that reading misses the letter's real target. The "conquering the world" and victory language running through 1 John draws directly on Νίκη, the goddess whose image, a six-foot statue in the hand of Zeus at Olympia and winged figures on the Arch of Titus, was inescapable across the Greco-Roman world. πίστις, usually flattened to "faith," carried the sense of loyalty owed to an emperor styled as a divine son. Read this way, 1 John's opponents are not simply a rival faction inside the church; they are the pull of an entire culture. That shift matters past the seminar room. "Perfect love casts out fear" stops sounding like devotional comfort once you know Plutarch and Cicero both wrote essays on the anxiety of divine judgment gripping ordinary people; the verse answers that fear directly, not the Hebrew Bible's fear of the Lord. "Keep yourselves from idols," the letter's abrupt final line, turns out to be literal instruction, not a stray metaphor, and the Cain material in chapter three reads as a warning against real violence inside families and communities under pressure to conform. For anyone teaching or preaching 1 John, the payoff is concrete: a sharper account of what the letter is actually defending its audience against, and, as Kim argues, a modern equivalent hiding in plain sight: the smartphone. It's a case study in how much biblical interpretation depends on historical context. Conquering the World: The Countercultural Victory of First John in Greco-Roman Context (LTNS 689): https://www.amazon.com/Countercultural-Victory-John-Greco-Roman-Context/dp/0567712079/ref=sr_1_1

    1 John Wasn’t Settling a Schism. It Was Countercultural Resistance to Rome | Dr. Ahreum Kim | Ep. 33

  6. Aug 20

    1, 2, 3 John and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Love and the Outside | Dr. Jamal-Dominique Hopkins | Ep. 32

    1 John says God is love, but the letter spends most of its energy on who counts as a neighbor and what love actually requires of you. Dr. Jamal-Dominique Hopkins, a Dead Sea Scrolls specialist trained and author of the forthcoming commentary on 1-3 John in the Word and Spirit Commentary series, argues that Qumran's sectarian writings give this question its sharpest historical context. The Rule of the Community, the War Scroll, and 4QMMT all use language John's community would have recognized: a we group instructing a you group not to become a they group, sons of light against sons of darkness, a remnant marked by the spirit of truth rather than the spirit of deceit. Reading the epistles against that backdrop exposes how deliberately John's language of love and fellowship is drawing boundaries and crossing them at once. Hopkins traces that tension through all three letters together rather than in isolation: 1 John's insistence that love is action and righteous justice, not sentiment; 2 John's puzzling elect lady and its early hint of a leadership question the church still argues about; and 3 John's public rebuke of Gaius against the model hospitality of Demetrius, read as Gentile believers learning to welcome Jewish outsiders, a reversal of the usual Dead Sea Scrolls pattern. He connects that reconciling impulse to his own formation in the Church of God in Christ and the Azusa Street Revival, where the Holy Spirit dissolved racial lines few institutions of the era would touch. For pastors, priests, seminarians, lay leaders, and Bible teachers preparing to preach or teach the Johannine epistles, this conversation recovers 1, 2, and 3 John as neglected, urgent texts about hospitality, diversity, and community. Profile: https://truettseminary.baylor.edu/person/jamal-dominique-hopkins-phd

    1, 2, 3 John and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Love and the Outside | Dr. Jamal-Dominique Hopkins | Ep. 32

  7. Aug 3

    Why the Johannine Community Split: Identity and Moral Repair in 1–3 John | Dr. Rikard Roitto | Ep. 31

    Why did the Johannine community divide, and how did the authors of 1–3 John seek to restore unity after a painful schism? Dr. Rikard Roitto explores the Johannine Epistles through the lenses of social identity, household churches, confession, forgiveness, and moral repair. Challenging traditional models of a single Johannine community, Roitto argues that these letters address a network of early Christian assemblies struggling with competing teachers, fractured relationships, and questions of authority. The conversation examines the famous schism described in 1 John, the roles of Diotrephes and the “elect lady” in 2 and 3 John, and how these short letters illuminate the social dynamics of the earliest Christian churches. Drawing on ritual theory, cognitive approaches, and historical analysis, Dr. Roitto explains how confession, intercession, and forgiveness functioned as practices of reconciliation that strengthened communal identity and restored trust after conflict. The discussion also considers discernment, hospitality, itinerant teachers, leadership, and the tension between preserving theological boundaries and maintaining Christian unity. Along the way, Roitto connects his groundbreaking research on the Johannine Epistles with his broader work on revenge, forgiveness, and moral repair in the ancient world, offering fresh historical and theological insights into early Christianity. Whether you are a pastor, seminarian, biblical scholar, or serious student of Scripture, this conversation provides a compelling new perspective on 1–3 John, the Johannine community, and the formation of Christian identity amid division and reconciliation. Ritual and Early Christianity: https://blogs.helsinki.fi/ritual-earlychristianity/research-team/

    Why the Johannine Community Split: Identity and Moral Repair in 1–3 John | Dr. Rikard Roitto | Ep. 31

  8. Jul 12

    What 1 John Means by Faith, Love, and Belief | Dr. Chris Seglenieks | Ep. 30

    1 John has been read for decades as a window into one crisis: a Johannine community splitting apart over secession, docetism, and rival claims to truth. Dr. Ahreum Kim's work on the letter's Greco-Roman background argues that reading misses the letter's real target. The "conquering the world" and victory language running through 1 John draws directly on Νίκη, the goddess whose image, a six-foot statue in the hand of Zeus at Olympia and winged figures on the Arch of Titus, was inescapable across the Greco-Roman world. πίστις, usually flattened to "faith," carried the sense of loyalty owed to an emperor styled as a divine son. Read this way, 1 John's opponents are not simply a rival faction inside the church; they are the pull of an entire culture. That shift matters past the seminar room. "Perfect love casts out fear" stops sounding like devotional comfort once you know Plutarch and Cicero both wrote essays on the anxiety of divine judgment gripping ordinary people; the verse answers that fear directly, not the Hebrew Bible's fear of the Lord. "Keep yourselves from idols," the letter's abrupt final line, turns out to be literal instruction, not a stray metaphor, and the Cain material in chapter three reads as a warning against real violence inside families and communities under pressure to conform. For anyone teaching or preaching 1 John, the payoff is concrete: a sharper account of what the letter is actually defending its audience against, and why it names young men, the community's most socially exposed members, as its first conquerors, a detail carrying deliberate military weight in a Greco-Roman setting. It's a case study in how much biblical interpretation depends on historical context. Website: https://cseglenieks.hcommons.org/

    What 1 John Means by Faith, Love, and Belief | Dr. Chris Seglenieks | Ep. 30
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Ratings & Reviews

4.8
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Hosted by two biblical scholars with diverse career backgrounds, Greg Camp (Sheffield University, Ph.D.) and Patrick Spencer (Durham University, Ph.D.), Scriptural Works focuses on a dynamic exploration of how to read and interpret scripture for greater meaning in today's postmodern world. Each episode unpacks the tools, methods, and insights that can be used to bring scripture alive, whether through their engaging dialogue or through conversations with guest scholars who bring specialized perspectives to particular texts or themes. From ancient contexts to contemporary application, from literary analysis to historical insights, Scriptural Works equips both lay readers and religious leaders with fresh approaches to biblical interpretation. Whether you're a curious reader, a minister seeking fresh perspectives, or anyone interested in developing a deeper grasp of scripture, Scriptural Works provides the intellectual tools and practical approaches to make biblical texts more accessible and meaningful.

Information

  • Creator
    Greg Camp and Patrick Spencer
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    37
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    Scriptural Works