In this article, I argue for the centrality of prayer within Christian interpretation of scripture. This argument is made in two stages. First, Christ on the road to Emmaus is the interpreter of scripture par excellence, such that scriptural interpretation is fruitfully understood as participation in Christ's interpretation of scripture to and for the church. Second, scriptural interpretation must take prayer as central to an appropriate scriptural hermeneutics, since prayer is one way in which the reader of scripture becomes conformed to person of Christ.

This essay re-examines the origins of Herman Bavinck's organic motif. Contending with a central claim of the new interpretative paradigm in Bavinck studies, this article problematises the claim that Bavinck's organic motif does not draw on German idealism but derives solely from a classical western doctrine of the Trinity. This essay argues that the denial of Schelling's influence on Bavinck's organicism misconstrues the terms on which Bavinck forges his synthesis of orthodoxy and modernity, and cloaks the degree to which Bavinck allows philosophical constructs to determine the material content of his theology.

The nature and extent of Karl Barth's significance in John Webster's theological formation is widely recognised but remains to be explored in detail. Addressing this lacuna, this essay considers how Barth's doctrine of the triune God animates Webster's teaching on the same. In approaching the topic, I show how Webster carries forward Barth's deep sense of God's aseity in relation to the world and follows Barth in his commitment to the singularity of God's triune being. God's particularity and aseity converge in ‘God's self-correspondence’ (namely, that God ‘in Godself’ corresponds to God ‘for us’), which represents the core of Barth's influence on Webster's theology proper. The final section responds to Katherine Sonderegger's recent criticism of Webster's ‘relationalism’, which counts God's relation to creatures as an integral aspect of God's eternal life. I reframe the issue in terms of Webster's late-career retractions of the language of inclusion and divine self-determination, arguing that the difficulties that Sonderegger identifies in earlier writings are overcome in the final decade of Webster's corpus.

The phrase blood of Christ has traditionally been interpreted as and used interchangeably with Christ's sacrificial death. As such, Jesus’ death is seen to be more crucial to salvation than his incarnation and resurrection. The blood of Christ language in the New Testament books of Hebrews and Romans echoes Old Testament cultic atonement language. Given recent and ample exegetical biblical scholarship that suggests blood of Christ language might refer to Christ's incarnational, resurrected life, we should explore the resulting soteriological implications. What salvific significance is there to the cross if Jesus Christ entered the Most Holy Place with his lifeblood flowing in his veins as David Moffitt asserts? I propose that the cross reveals God's legal and moral authority to forgive sin without minimising the law.