This is a print on demand book and is therefore non- returnable. To answer the question of what role the New Testament should play in the formation and expression of Christian social morality today, Richard Longenecker here proposes a developmental hermeneutic, which distinguishes between "declared principles" and "described practices" in the New Testament writings. With this distinction in mind, he focuses on the three couplets of Galatians 3:28 -- "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female" -- showing how these matters were treated in early Christian thought and explaining their meaning for us today. In so doing, Longenecker lays a hermeneutical foundation for the much larger discussion of Christian social ethics.

Christopher Wright examines a theological, social and economic framework for Old Testament ethics. Then he explores a variety of themes in relation to contemporary issues including economics, the land, the poor, politics, law and justice, and community.

Neither Jesus nor Paul developed a formal ethical system, yet each left a moral legacy that forms the core of New Testament ethics. In this book, Frank Matera examines the ethic found in the teachings of Jesus and Paul. He explores the broad range of moral concerns found in these writings and finds an identifiable unity that underlies the ethical teachings of both.

A leading expert in New Testament ethics discovers in the biblical witness a unified ethical vision -- centered in the themes of community, cross and new creation -- that has profound relevance in today's world. Richard Hays shows how the New Testament provides moral guidance on the most troubling ethical issues of our time, including violence, divorce, homosexuality and abortion. "Hays' passionately written book, with its bold agenda, has neither peer nor rival." --Leander E. Keck, Winkley Professor of Biblical Theology, Yale Divinity School "There are few people I would rather read for the actual exposition of the New Testament than Richard Hays. This book is filled with wonderful readings that not only inform us about how to think better about the so-called 'problem of the relation between the New Testament and ethics' but, even more, speak of how our lives should be lived in the light of Christ's cross. -Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Studies, Duke University Divinity School "Richard Hays has succeeded brilliantly in bringing New Testament studies, contemporary theology, and ethics into a deeply reflective conversation... Hays' point is that the New Testament norms the Christian life, and, with the help of imagination and metaphor, can address the moral conflicts of our time." --Ellen T. Charry, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University "This book isn't just a breath of fresh air. It's a hurricane, blowing away the fog of half-understood pseudo-morality and fashionable compromise, and revealing instead the early Christian vision of true humanness and genuine holiness. If this isn't a book for our time, I don't know what is." --N. T. Wright, author of The New Testament and the People of God

Theissen inquires into the correlation between the theological and ethical convictions of the first Christians as well as the social realities of the world in which they lived. He expands the form-critical inquiry into the Sitz im Leben of early Christian texts to ask about the significance of early Christian convictions in society.