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Sundoulos: Can you tell us something about the Apologetics Study Bible project that you just finished?

Hultberg: Yes, a lot of us have had a part in that. I wrote the notes for the synoptic gospels. The Apologetics Study Bible seeks to address texts that pose apologetic issues—in my case, problems of harmonization among the synoptic gospels, or sometimes with John, or issues of the historical Jesus, or historical cultural issues, or things having to do with early Christian theology, particularly Christology. So that turned out to be quite a big project, close to 120 pages of notes.

Rhee: At the present time, I'm working on an article on the literary structure of Hebrews chapter 1, and its Christology. Another thing I'm working on is the commentary project on the book of Hebrews, the Asian Bible Commentary. It is written from the perspective of an audience that would be mainly English speaking Asians. So, my attempt is to apply the message of the book of Hebrews to Eastern Cultures and Eastern Philosophies and Eastern religions. Because of that, I'm applying the superiority of Christ to Buddhism, and also trying to broaden the application to Hinduism and ancestral worship, and that is going to be a big project for me. The Asian Theological Association is sponsoring this project.

Arnold: I'm currently engaged in a couple of projects. One of them is just about done. It's a small project for Zondervan telling the story of how we got the Bible. It's a visual project, where there will be about 50 two-page spreads and about 80% of what you see will be images...

Wilkins: You keep working on these picture books! [laughter]

Arnold: And it will be full color! The idea is to present the history of the Bible from the earliest forms of writing and earliest forms of Hebrew texts, all the way to the contemporary translations, but to do it with a lot of graphics and pictures of inscriptions and various copies of the Bible through history and to convey it with a sense of pathos or emotion, that this was a book that was cherished by people and was very valuable, people considered it worth dying for, people wanted to get it out into languages that others could understand and respond to immediately. It's been a fun project to work on.

The second project will probably take the next 15 years. I'll be serving as general editor for an exegetical commentary series for Zondervan, 20 volumes on the New Testament. We're creating an exegetical commentary series that would have relevance for pastors and teachers in the church who have had a couple of years of Greek, and not to assume any more than that. Our desire is to be professedly evangelical and not to grapple with the issues that people in the church don't have the least bit of concern about—all the historical critical questions—and then use the Greek and various tools to interpret the text. We're going to try to mainstream a simplified form of discourse analysis, and we'll have graphical displays to do that. We're going to try, for every single passage, to have a two to three sentence statement of the main idea, so whoever is reading it doesn't have to look through and wonder, "What does this guy think the passage really means?" We'll end it all with some discussion of biblical theology and a bit of a suggestion in terms of relevance and application. The goal is to be exegetical and to truly help readers who have only had a couple years of Greek use it in the interpretation of the text.

Wilkins: And you're writing which commentary?

Arnold: I will be writing Ephesians.

Sundoulos: By the way, Clint, what has been the response to the Bible Backgrounds Commentary for which you served as senior editor?

Arnold: It's been a delight for me to hear ordinary lay people so excited about the Bible Backgrounds Commentary, to hear people talk about reading all the reflection side bars and about how much it's really meant to them. I think that's been the most gratifying side. It's definitely ministering far beyond the professional guild.

Hubbard: My wife teaches at a public school, and one of her fellow teachers got a hold of this set and she just loves it. It's strengthened her faith and knowledge, and it's exciting to see that kind of thing.

Wilkins: And what was the award that you received for that, Clint?

Arnold: Well, the Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association. [cheers, clapping]

Wilkins: The project I'm working on right now has been a fun little thing. There are 12 to 15 of us Jesus scholars in IBR who were commissioned as the Jesus Project. We are taking twelve incidents in Jesus' earthly ministry. One person a year gives a credible defense of the historicity of that event in Jesus' life, for a scholarly audience. We meet together every June, and for eight hours we go over one paper by one person. My paper is up this year, on Peter's confession as Jesus as Messiah. There will be two volumes that will be published, one for a scholarly audience (we're hoping Oxford Press will do that), and a popular version as well.

Along with that, I'm working on a little book that kind of blends some of my interests in discipleship and spiritual formation that I'm calling "The Transformation of Peter." It will trace Peter's life from his first encounter with Jesus to the end of his life, to see the transformation theologically, say in terms of his Christology, his own personal transformation, his transformation as a leader. That's an ongoing project that comes into play with a group I'm working with now called "Transform World." Luis Bush is the head of this. Starting in Indonesia in May, they're going to have an annual meeting where they'll gather national church leaders, seeking the transformation through the church of their people. I've been commissioned to write the focus group on discipleship that will kind of set the agenda for each of these gatherings. The next one will be in Africa, and then India. So, it's just a fun, fun way of taking the scholarship that we talked about earlier and now getting that into the hands of the church.

And then, in the commentary series that Clint is spearheading, I'll be doing the commentary on 1 Peter. So it really does put all of these things together in a little package.

Sundoulos: As you look back at your days as seminary students, and since, what are some of the more influential factors that impacted your development as a scholar and as a minister?

Hubbard: I went to Multnomah Bible College, and one thing I took away from there has helped me all throughout my education. It was incredibly important as I went through Oxford, and guides my teaching now—a sense of the importance of following the text wherever it leads, allowing the text to form your theology and not vice versa. That's one thing that I try to impress upon my students. "Don't be afraid to follow the text where it's leading, and if it's going there you go there too."

Hultberg: You know, Clint was a big influence on me when I was in seminary here at Talbot. He had just started teaching, I think. He was an excellent scholar, very passionate about his scholarship but especially about his discipleship. I saw his heart, that he's just somebody who is not taken with himself, but is just a real genuine person, and that was impressive to me.

Rhee: One influence that had a big impact on me was my failure in seminary. I took a course in the book of Hebrews, and the professor said that this course was very difficult, but it was very easy to get a good grade, so everyone got A's and B's, but I got an F. I got an F in the book of Hebrews! [laughter] I just cannot forget that. But through the years, the Lord helped me to recover from that failure and at Dallas Theological Seminary, when I was in the doctoral program, I decided to write a dissertation in the book of Hebrews just to prove to myself that I do have some understanding of the book of Hebrews. [laughter] So, that failure just reminds me that God always gives new opportunities, and failure in one thing does not necessarily mean that we are a failure forever, so that is a great encouragement for me.

Hellerman: I had absolutely a delightful experience at Talbot. I came to Talbot only because it was geographically close, I didn't know much more than I wanted to do ministry. I got into formal theological studies and discovered how absolutely delightful it was. There were some professors at Talbot that were special, like Tom Finley. I did a ThM in Old Testament and that wasn't very popular, so I had a lot of personal time with Dr. Finely in his office with one other student, reading through Isaiah, and I just really appreciated the godly, deep, person Tom Finley is.

Arnold: Well, there is one person that was very influential on me, J. Vernon McGee, who used to have a radio broadcast. I became a Christian as a teenager. I wasn't raised in a Christian home, my parents were new believers at the time. I somehow discovered this guy on the radio, and the way he knew the Bible, the way he could draw out the implications of the Bible for life—it just gripped me. I used to organize my day out on the farm so I could have the door of the pick-up open and listen to J. Vernon McGee go through the Bible.

Wilkins: I would say what stands out for me as the most important factor is the influence of three other students that I went through Talbot with. I was only three years old as a Christian when I started Talbot and a little bit older, having been in the Army, and I was pretty much a mess as a person. My wife recognized that I was a mess, and she and these three guys wouldn't let me alone. I was a loner, I worked full time and went to school full time, and I was really driven, but the significant factor was these three guys, Mike, Dale and Larry, all of whom I still have some contact with. They wanted to be my friends, and they wanted to make sure that I was more than a one-dimensional person. I would usually go to a corner of a room and sit by myself and they would all three come and sit around me. I would go to chapel by myself and they would all three come and sit with me. They really opened me up to how to be a real person. I would say for our readers in particular, try to maintain relationships, recognize the supreme importance of community.

Sundoulos: In concluding, you understand the pressures on pastors these days to do programs and be involved in so many things. The "good old days" are gone, when a typical pastor could count on thirty hours a week to study for a sermon. In the face of day to day pressures, many pastors have lost the passion for doing the work of exegesis. What would you say to encourage them, or maybe to reawaken that passion?

Wilkins: One of the things I ask my students to promise me—I don't have it in writing, but I say, just give me one verse a day. Give me one verse a day where you do serious exegesis, and if on an ongoing basis you will keep a log of what you do and pull out your Greek, pull out your Hebrew, and do some serious study of just that one verse every single day for the rest of your lives, by the time you come to the end of your career, you will have maximized all the exegetical tools you have ever learned. It will stay fresh. One verse, just give me one verse.

Rhee: Well, I would encourage the senior pastor and even the youth pastor, to do a devotional study every day with the same passage that they will be preaching or teaching for the week. If they do so, then I think they will be affected in the sermon preparation.

Arnold: I guess I would say this past year or so has been among of the most difficult times in my life, with a lot of stuff going on. I have just so deeply appreciated certain things that I have seen different things that the Lord has really used to encourage me in some difficult times. My encouragement would be to always be immersed in the Word. We learn a framework for how to think about the Word and interpret the Word through hermeneutics and exegesis, but there's nothing to replace just being in the Word, and seeing the things that God would show us in the Word.

Hubbard: I want to echo that, and get behind it a little bit. I think we always have time for what's important to us, and we've all had days or weeks or maybe even longer periods where we were not able, because of extenuating circumstances, to spend time in careful study. But I try to recognize the needs of my students, and the needs of my students cannot be met in any other way except by Scripture, and my job is to make sure that the Word of Life is in fact being presented to them. I think if a pastor understands the need of his congregation, and what Scripture can offer, than that responsibility should compel him to spend time in study. So develop a sense of the importance and the urgency of the task of being in the Word for the sake of your flock, for that nurturing that can't come from other sources.

Hellerman: I don't know where I got this expression, but I've always encouraged people to be "prayed up." In other words, a lot of times we run on our own energy and our own anxiety and what not, to accomplish the tasks that are in front of us that God has given to us, and we run out of fuel after a while. We need a steadier, constant commitment to Christ, and communion with God in His word and in prayer, from which you can draw.

A second thing is this. A lot of times in my exegesis class, students will say, "It takes so much time and so much energy to get this done, it's impossible, nobody could ever do this regularly." I encourage them by saying, really, the more you practice, the better you get at it, the more quickly it comes.

Hultberg: It seems to me especially if we're talking about studying and expounding the text and exhorting your congregation from the text, like Victor said, you have to live with the text. Some preachers rely on commentaries and what not, but we're not called to preach the commentaries, we're called to preach the Word of God, and it only becomes alive in you if you study the text. You have to ask yourself, "To what has God called me?" Be faithful to the calling God has placed on your life, not to what other people think you ought to be doing.

Sundoulos: Thank you all for your time, and for your ministry. It's a great privilege to serve along side each one of you.