Paul's teaching about divine benefactions in Rom 12:6-8 extends the theme of worship that he establishes in Rom 12:1-2. Together, these passages address a uniquely gentile dilemma that his audience faced as new Christ-followers, which was the challenge of finding acceptable replacements for former cultic activities that were woven through all of life's stages, from birth to death. One of the chief shortcomings of the scholars that have written about Rom 12:6-8 is a failure to address what his gentile audience might have brought to his teaching and how his alignment of gifts with ritual (Rom 12:1-2) mirrored their polytheistic background. By analyzing examples from ancient texts and artifacts, Teresa Lee McCaskill shows that all seven of the terms Paul uses in Rom 12:6-8 would have had recognizable cultic antecedents for first-century worshipers in Rome. McCaskill presents a theoretical model that discusses how Paul's gentile audience might have viewed the charismata and considered them as examples of sanctioned practices to replace former rituals. She also weighs how these gifts could have served to further Paul's missional objectives.

Bewildering secrets and perplexing mysteries are probed by eight wily waifs who wander the environs of Jennings Road. Because competent adults neither planned nor presided over their outings, they had the swaggering confidence and the run of the neighborhood that was the birthright of their generation. They engaged in every manner of mischief. They took life-threatening risks. They never thought of consequences. There were no safety nets. The candid reflections in Belly Button Blues regarding siblings, friends, and adults are fanciful, funny, and sometimes wise. Leo, handyman and moonshine distiller, dispatched outrageous and appalling newsflashes. The gone-astray garb beneath Opal's dress was just the beginning of her fashion blunders. Emmett, an aged, wrecked relic, was fond of solitude, strong drink, and scratchy whiskers. Violet divulged details about her dates and the wily ways of young men. The mysterious Basil had joined the navy, joined the circus, or joined a religious order. Whether it was a solitary shoe, a broken toaster, or a pan of burnt brownies, if Gram didn't know where to put it, it got tossed into her back bedroom. Mr. Cannon watched over the pint-sized patrons of his store as they assessed the mouth-watering merits of each lowly sweet that would set them back only one cent. Virgie kept a loaded gun hidden beneath her apron to keep the Friday night Poker players in line. Mark and Kenny's wondrous creations were fantastic feats of architecture with trapdoors, windows that shuttered closed, and rooftop balconies with incredible views. Unlike the other mothers, Winnie would bust out laughing when a child dared to act wayward, wicked, or unwise. "Beneath them, maggots are spread out as a couch," the sweetly smiling Sunday School teachers informed their wide-eyed students, "and worms are their coverings." The forty-four essays in Belly Button Blues will make you wish that you had grown up with the Jennings Road gang. The world was theirs, they owned everything in it, and just about anything could be fixed with a Band-Aid and a thorough cleansing with diluted Lysol disinfectant cleaner.