The 28th Annual Carmichael Walling Lectures will take place at Chapel on the Hill on Thursday with Dr. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, a Baylor professor, as the featured speaker.
The event is themed “God’s Outsized Faithfulness: Rethinking Romans” for Romans chapter 9-11. It will be at 4 and 7:30 p.m. on Thursday in room 114 in the Onstead Packer Building.
In the past, world-class scholars have come from across the world, as far as Europe, to speak at this lecture.
Contrary to previous years, these lectures will be given by someone from close by and well-known around Texas.
Gaventa is a professor of New Testament in the Department of Religion at Baylor and has lectured widely in the United States, Canada, Europe, South Africa and Australia.
“Dr. Gaventa has published a number of books and articles, and she is currently working on a commentary on Romans,” said Jeff Childers, professor of Bible and church history in the Graduate School of Theology. “She will be sharing some of her fresh research on Romans in these lectures. I can’t give away the content, but I can tell you that it will be current and very carefully argued material on one of the most important books in the Bible.”
Childers has been a part of these lectures since he was a student at ACU, and his enthusiasm toward this lecture seems promising.
The topic of the lecture is personal, and because of that there are two different meetings available to the public, free of charge.
“She is presenting two different lectures, though they both deal with related topics, focused on Paul’s teaching in Romans 9-11,” Childers said. “One deals with the size of the salvation that God accomplishes in Jesus Christ. The other deals more with the human response to that, and also the place of the Law (Torah) in God’s continuing plan for his people.”
The lectures last from 45-50 minutes and end with questions from the audience that can fall into deeper discussions about the subject matter.
With the specialty that Gaventa has in the New Testament, she has a lot of knowledge to offer about Romans.
In the past, people all the way from Oklahoma City have visited to watch the lectures. Since there is a local speaker, the turnout may be more than usual.
“When I found out it was over Romans 9-11, I was interested in attending,” said Holly Neese, a freshman kinesiology major from Plano. “Those scriptures basically give us three ways to live, and after moving to college and being in a new place, I think it is interesting to learn about the methods that other people choose.”
This lecture may also offer a different crowd than previous years. The content that Gaventa is discussing is “new” and relevant to today’s lifestyle, which interests those of younger ages as well as adults.
Romans will be expressed in a way that most people are not used to seeing it and will offer another point of view to audience members.
“Dr. Gaventa wants to put a fresh light on them (God’s promises to Israel) and help us see that for Paul, God’s salvation is very big – it’s cosmic, not just about an individual’s status before God,” Childers said.
