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One especially contentious issue for Matthew's predominantly Jewish-Christian audience is how to relate to Gentiles, who are also followers of Jesus and desire to be incorporated into their community. To address this issue, Matthew appeals to Israel's wisdom tradition, and particularly to the pilgrimage of Woman Wisdom. In this journey, Woman Wisdom is commanded to dwell in Israel. She makes her home there and calls all people to come to her for wisdom and life. Ultimately, Wisdom is rejected by Israel and she returns to God. This thesis proposes that it is this pilgrimage of Woman Wisdom that is an underlying metaphor for Matthew's gospel. Like Wisdom, Jesus arrives in Israel, calls Israel to follow him, and is ultimately rejected. Woman Wisdom's cry to come to her to receive life is echoed in Jesus' call for all to enter the kingdom of God. The inclusion of the Gentiles in the community therefore demonstrates the presence of the kingdom of God.

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The current study sought to examine the marriage mentoring model as a method to restore marriages among Christian believers. This thesis first assessed the dissolution of marriages through divorce in order to understand its causes, and included a study of the Christian Scriptures regarding divorce and the topic of marriage. In addition, current literature was reviewed in an attempt to better comprehend how mentoring worked and how it may be utilized as a divorce prevention method among troubled marriages. Interviews were then conducted with Christian couples who had experienced marital distress but were reconciled. The responses were then analyzed. The study was unique in that it examined Christian couples in established marriages that were in marital distress when they started the mentoring process. Thirteen couples participated in the study. The couples lived in various states across the country: Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Christian couples were sought through churches and Christian counseling centers in the continental United States that have a marriage mentoring ministry and also through the recommendation of select seminary professors, church practitioners, or online marriage mentoring websites. Past studies on marriage mentoring have shown that mentoring resulted in an increase in communication and a decrease in marital conflict among pre-marital or newly married couples. The results of the current study indicated that marriage mentoring was also beneficial to Christian couples who had been married for several years and were on the verge of divorce. This study has shown that no matter the severity of the marital distress, marriages can be repaired and can flourish with marriage mentoring.

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M.Litt. et Phil. / The role of the Spirit in the Eschatological Ethics of Revelation was a topic that has given me Great Joy to learn in the book of Revelation the role of the Spirit, Eschatology and Ethics. In this book I have discovered the plan of Salvation which was laid before the foundation of the World in a very clear manner. God, The Master of the universe, revealed to John the final story of this world's history, at the Isles of Patmos. The Trinity is well explained and even their duties as the God Head. God The Father, God The Son and God The Holy Ghost of which my dissertation is looking at the office or the role of the Spirit in the Second Coming of Christ. From Genesis to Malachi, it is God the Father who revealed himself to mankind, and from Matthew to Acts 1 : 8., It is God the Son who came in person to reveal God the Father and from Acts 1:9 to Revelation it is God the Holy Spirit who will teach us all that God the son could not finish teaching us. The Script is divided into Five Chapters which are the orientation into the book of Revelation, the theology and the ethics of the book of Revelation, the Eschatological Ethics in Revelation, the Holy Spirit in Revelation and the role of the Spirit and the Eschatological Ethics of Revelation, which is the theme of this script. Then we have the conclusion of the script. There are very few books written on Revelation and let alone on the Spirit but I have tried to outline the role of the spirit in this great book of the Bible and I hope to research further on some issues that are hard in Revelation. It is the book that summarises the history of the World Kingdoms in only 22 Chapters and I have limited mine to only Five Chapters. The Spirit has played the greatest role in Revelation because according to plan it is the time for it to play its role. The last events of this world will be shocking, the devil is angry. In the book of Revelation God calls Himself as the King of kings and Lord of Lords. He is the Almighty God. All creation own their existence to Him. It was one book of the Bible I did not like reading, but the research has helped me to develop some liking for the book. It is the book for our modern generation and unlike the book of Daniel which was to be put away until the end times, this one is to be read and a blessing is pronounce to the one who will read the book. We need to read this book very much and books that are in context should be written about the book. The few books that have been written on Revelation are not all very relevant. They miss the point. Most of them need well researched books to make clear the mysteries that are in Revelation and the Bible explains itself even in other books of the Bible which can also be used to explain the book of Revelation. The book of Daniel even though its in the old Testament, it has a lot in common with the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation opens for the reading of the book of Daniel in the old Testament and for one to understand Revelation well, one needs to read the book of Daniel together with Revelation. The beasts in Daniel are the beasts in Revelation. Even though some people would want to divide the old and the new Testament, they are the same and they interpret each other very well. The new testament has a lot of old testament quotations. I am trying to correct some misinterpretation of some verses found in the Book of Revelation and It will be good for any one who will read this script to read it carefully and critically because in the field of learning we learn by making mistakes and your input will be appreciated. In Revelation the devil is being given the last warning and all those that need life are called to come out of Babylon the Mother of all Harlots because if we do not come out of her and keep the commandments of God, then we will drink of the wrath of God which will be poured without a mixture for all those that worship the beast and its image.

In this thesis I addressed the topic, Forced Divorce? A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches to the Ethical Pragmatism of Divorce in the Old Testament and New Testament Texts in six steps. I provided a research design of the thesis, an analysis of the family institutions in Ancient Israel, a literary, historical and social background to the texts of Ezra and Nehemiah, followed by an application of rhetorical criticism to Ezra 910 and Nehemiah 13. Thereafter, I provided an analysis of anthropological insights to the World of the New Testament with specific reference to the Gospels, and implemented an application of rhetorical criticism to Matthew 19: 1-12, Mark 10:1-12 and Luke 16: 18. This is followed by an analysis of the provision and prohibition of divorce in the Jewish society, and an analysis of the Agunah problem. My main findings were that the basic common horizon underlying Ezra, Nehemiah, Matthew, Mark and Luke is that divorce was socially accepted as a social norm in the relevant communities. Secular ethics allowed for divorce, but the Kingdom ethics presented by Jesus reinforced the original divine plan of marriage - i.e. one man and one woman joining to form one flesh. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2002.

This thesis is a project in narrative New Testament ethics. It offers a fresh reading of the material in Luke-Acts that concerns wealth and possessions, beginning with two primary premises, which are developed in Part 1: (1) The descriptive and synthetic activities traditionally accorded to New Testament ethics are not fully separable from the hermeneutical and pragmatic concerns usually considered the domain of theological ethics. (2) The conceptualizations of the moral life readers bring with them to the biblical text will influence the reading strategies they employ and thus the critical readings that result. Based on these premises, this thesis reads Luke-Acts with a contemporary, pragmatic ethical question in view, "What attitudes, dispositions, and practices should members of Christian communities in North America at the beginning of the third Christian millennium adopt in an environment of personal and societal affluence, capitalist consumerism, and economic globalization?" Furthermore, it approaches Luke-Acts in terms of a narratively-based ethics of character, based on the work of Alasdair Maclntyre and Stanley Hauerwas. A concluding chapter in Part 1 locates Luke's narrative moral discourse within the moral discourse of narrative literature in New Testament literary environment. / Part 2 begins by surveying recent readings of the possessions theme in Luke-Acts, highlighting the problem of presenting a consistent reading of the diverse material related to this theme in Luke's narrative. Employing a narrative-critical methodology that presents a sequential reading of the material related to this theme in the form of close readings of important episodes, it demonstrates that by reading this material in terms of the premises established in Part 1 a coherent reading is possible. Reading Luke-Acts as narrative discourse yields a coherent yet complex view of material possessions which understands them as a spiritual and moral peril to those who fall under their sway, while simultaneously showing them to be a divine gift that may be used in diverse ways to sustain human well-being. A concluding chapter summarizes these findings and makes suggestions concerning the usefulness of this reading in the moral formation of the contemporary community of faith.

Because of the neglect and dichotomization in evangelical theology, this dissertation provides an evangelical ressourcement for the external and internal reality of revelation. By using resources from Scripture, the history of the church, and systematic theology, it argues that revelation includes external and internal dimensions that are organically united in the triune God. This construal is clear within the Bible and church history, and its biblical and historical presence carries implications towards the construction of a systematic theology of revelation and a practical understanding within the church. The dissertation argues that revelation is external and internal, whether a revelation occurs objectively to the human person in the form of a disclosure of information (external) or subjectively to the human person in the form of an unveiling of perception (internal). The argument is developed by utilizing a biblical, historical, systematic, and practical theology of revelation. Accordingly, after a brief introduction to the contemporary scene in chapter 1, this dissertation addresses biblical theology in chapters 2 (Old Testament) and 3 (New Testament), historical theology in chapter 4, systematic theology in chapter 5, and practical theology in chapter 6.

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