Journal: Conspectus
Volume: CONSPECTUS 39:1 (Apr 2025)
Article: Editorial
Author: Anonymous

SATS 39:1 (April 2025) p. 5

Editorial

It is a joy to be part of the academic ministry of the South African Theological Seminary. Conspectus seeks to engage Christian thought on various issues and how we can use the gift of critical thinking to enable us to discern how we ought to live. Volume 39 reflects a strong desire to engage Scripture, culture, and faith. The contributors wrestle either with contextual issues or biblical texts and seek to apply them to our faith. The collective volume demonstrates that Christian scholarship serves to help the church to fulfil God’s mission and not merely for the sake of academic curiosity.

Conspectus 39 Articles

What is the symbolic significance of what is popularly termed The Great Commission? Shane Williamson, in “Canonical Capstone: The Great Commission in its Jewish Symbolic World,” provides an intriguing argument that the Great Commission needs to be read intertextually. He argues that the Great Commission is foreshadowed in the Old Testament; however, it is only in Jesus Christ that it is finally fulfilled. He argues that Matthew 28:18–20 must be read intertextually with 2 Chronicles 36:23 to demonstrate that the Great Commission is deeply linked to Israel’s Scriptures and in the Jewish symbolic world. Throughout biblical history, various messianic pretenders appeared. However, Jesus (the true Messiah) gives a new edict (greater than that of Cyrus) to all his followers and sends them out into the world as the long-awaited Messiah. In him, the Scriptures of Israel find fulfilment, as he is God’s living Word and divine presence.

Jesse Kipimo introduces the readers, in “Towards a Power-Oriented Pneumatology with Missional Implication in Lubumbashi, DRC,” to how Pentecostal Christians are seeking to make sense of their social realities through their faith. He points out how the belief in the power of the Holy Spirit gives believers in the DRC renewed zeal for missions as they also experience the Spirit’s power. The author encourages the continuity of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit and shows their impact in the DRC. He discusses the role of the Holy Spirit in the church’s mission but also highlights the existential assurance the reality of the Holy Spirit provides in life’s difficult situations.

Daniel Webster, in “Why Does the Lord Seek to Kill Moses? Fresh Insight from Reading Exodus 4:24–26 as Moses’s Preparatory, Proleptic Passover,” introduces the readers to the dramatic interaction between God, Moses, Gershom, and Zipporah. One might think that God seeks to kill Moses out of anger. Webster presents an argument to the contrary. He argues that the enigmati...