released 6/20/2025

Theologian Joshua Jipp explores St. Paul’s theology to propose that doctrine ought to be intimately concerned with the way one lives one’s life. The early Church Fathers believed that a life of holiness, prayer, and spiritual perception helped one to interpret Scripture properly, but contemporary scholarship often focuses on doctrinal orthodoxy without concern for the difference those doctrines ought to make in one’s life and in the life of the Church. In a world starved of meaning, Jipp asserts that Christianity provides robust answers to deep, existential questions. As an example, Jipp describes the richness of Paul’s theology regarding the fullness of life that Christians share because of the fact of Christ’s ascension and of our being in Christ. He connects this truth with Paul’s teaching of the transformation of the mind, asking to what purpose is the mind transformed? The purpose, Jipp claims, is a communal way of life in Christ, for which all human beings were created, since “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Dr. Jipp is the author of Pauline Theology as a Way of Life: A Vision of Human Flourishing in Christ (Baker Academic, 2023).

31 minutes

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