Through close textual engagement, theological exposition, ethical reflection, and interdisciplinary collaboration, this book presents a constructive theology of divine speech in the Acts of the Apostles and 1 Corinthians in critical conversation with contemporary issues of sociopolitical, ecclesial, and theological importance. In particular, the authors attend to pericopes in Acts and Paul that open up fresh ways of thinking about divine discourse, preaching, and advocacy in light of contemporary matters of theological and ethical import. In addition to classical modes of textual and theological analysis, the authors attend to the sociopolitical and sociolinguistic aspects of speech as they arise in these pericopes. As such, the authors are simultaneously deconstructing these texts through postcolonial and post-structural analyses to expose these texts to an alterity at work therein, an alterity that has been muted by centuries of biblical interpretation.

Making Love with Scripture offers an accessible way of thinking about scriptural interpretation, showing how the destabilization of the text can open us up to the Iiberative work of God's Spirit. It also shows how such a destabilization neither obviates deep evangelical commitments nor renders the text meaningless and ineffectual. It posits a mode of understanding the Word of God revealed in Scripture that melds what is best and life-giving from both the evangelical and mainline traditions. Making Love with Scripture is written for those who reject the dichotomy between evangelical hermeneutics that affirm the importance of Scripture for Christian faith and practice and mainline hermeneutics that diminish or ignore the Bible's significance in favor of acts of justice in the world. It addresses those of us who seek a way toward the liberation of the created order out of systems of oppression and marginalization while at the same time affirming the agency of the Word in and through the biblical witness.