Episode: Dru suggests that biblical law is something to think with and not just about. Matt and Dru discuss this idea and its many implications that were articulated in Dru's recent book Understanding Biblical Law: Skills for Thinking With and Through Torah (Baker, 2025). And as a throw-back to an old OnScript interview practice, Dru and Matt cold-call another guest.

Guest: Dr. Dru Johnson is the Templeton senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall (University of Oxford), adjunct professor of religion at Hope College in Holland, MI (previously a professor at The King’s College in New York City), director of the Abrahamic Theistic Origins Project, director of the Center for Hebraic Thought, editor at The Biblical Mind, host of The Biblical Mind podcast, and co-host of the OnScript Podcast. He’s written a bunch of books, including Human Rites, Knowledge By Ritual, Scripture's Knowing, and What Hath Darwin to do with Scripture?

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Episode: In this episode Chris Tilling interviews Cor Bennema about his new book, Imitation in Early Christianity: Mimesis and Religious-Ethical Formation (Eerdmans, 2023). What does it mean to say that early Christians imitated God, Christ, Paul, and even one another? Cor takes us on a tour through the world of Jewish and Greco-Roman antiquity, then shows how imitation became a central—if often overlooked—thread running through the New Testament and into the Apostolic Fathers. Along the way we talk Synoptics, John, Paul, Hebrews, martyrdom, character formation, and the role of the Spirit. This is a book that manages to be both comprehensive and illuminating, offering a conceptual framework that will change how you think about discipleship, ethics, and participation in the life of God.

Guest: Cor Bennema teaches New Testament and heads the research department at London School of Theology. Prior to this he taught for 11 years in India. His research focuses on the Johannine writings, the canonical Gospels, character in biblical narrative, and early Christian ethics. He has published widely for both the church and the academy.

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Episode: With a biblical poem that shifts imagery (Ps 23), and another (Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays") that provides perspective, Brent Strawn takes us into an "uber-famous" biblical poem-this "nightingale of the Psalms" (Henry Ward Beecher)-that needs to be heard again. Themes of life, death, and asylum redound. Enjoy this last episode of Season 1 of our podcast In Parallel.

Poem Attribution: “Those Winter Sundays,” Copyright © 1966 by Robert Hayden. From COLLECTED POEMS OF ROBERT HAYDEN by Robert Hayden, edited by Frederick Glaysher. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Company.

Strawn also discusses Sharon Olds' poem "The Preparing" from her 2002 collection Balladz.

About: In Parallel is a new podcast that explores biblical and contemporary poetry. Please subscribe wherever you listen (Apple Podcasts, Spotify). For more information about the podcast, see HERE and to learn more about Brent, see HERE.

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