Rodolfo Estrada

This essay proposes a new interpretation of the Pauline expression to “clothe”(νδύω) oneself in Christ (Rom 13: 14; Gal 3: 27; Eph 4: 24; Col 3: 10). The phrase has been understood in terms of putting on virtues and godly characteristics. Other understandings of this phrase appear in terms of a new identity (Gal 3: 27). There has been relatively limited study, however, on the significance of clothing and how different racial groups were known and characterized by their dress. Clothing was not just something that one “puts on” to protect the body from the elements or analogously understood in terms of adopting virtues. Clothing was a racial signifier, and the putting on or taking off of clothing signaled a racial transformation. The ability to “put on clothes” would have been understood in terms of the malleable nature of racial identity. By drawing on the insights of Herodotus, Aeschylus, Plutarch, and other Greek and Roman writers, this reading proposes a racial interpretation of Paul’s “clothing” phrases in Romans 13: 14, Galatians 3: 27, Ephesians 4: 24, and Colossians 3: 10. This essay explores the interpretation of these Pauline passages in contemporary scholarship, describes how the changing of clothing also signified a change of racial identity, and lastly, demonstrates how these insights can impact our understanding of the Pauline expression to “clothe oneself in Christ”.

While various positions on the immigration debate center on passages such as Romans 13 or Matthew 25, this essay will explore the Spirit-baptism narratives in Acts in order to provide another way of thinking about the immigration debate. This essay argues that Spirit baptism is an event and experience that challenges nativist and xenophobic perspectives on immigrants, those who are considered excluded from social interaction and relations.  But a theology of Spirit baptism should not be restricted at the individual or ecclesial level. It must shape our perspectives on the racial and legislative policies, practices, and political representatives. Our involvement in the discourse, debate, and dialogue about the immigrant must be grounded on a Spirit baptism of race, not political or economic ideologies. It must transform how believers are to view the foreigners and (undocumented) immigrants amongst us and advocate for the full inclusion of their humanity—spiritually, social, and politically.

This essay seeks to provide a Latino rereading of the ‘born again’ identity in John 3:1–8. It argues that being ‘born again’ is not a religious identity as popularly understood in American evangelicalism but an anti-racist identity that rejects all notions of racial superiority through the negation of birthing privileges. To champion or support racist policies toward Latin American migrants (or any minoritized community) is contrary to the very identity of a ‘born again’ believer. This Latino reading explores the racial context of the historical milieu of the New Testament and reflects upon the contemporary challenges of white supremacy and white evangelicalism in a post-Trump America.

This essay argues that the description of "dreamers," "blasphemers," and the positive counterexample of Michael's engagement with Satan in Jude 8-10, when understood together , demonstrate that the opponents were magicians. We explore the significance of magicians during the Greco-Roman period and how angels are described within the magical papyri. This reading furthermore provides an alternative interpretation on how the apocryphal tradition of Michael is included in order to portray Michael as an exemplary exorcist. Michael is an example on how to properly engage the demonic, not by invoking angels like the magicians, but by calling upon the Lord. Engaging with spiritual beings and revealing dreams would have provided possible proof that these opponents were marked by the Spirit, as the readers assumed in verse 19. But as the magical papyri reveal, the disciples of Jesus did not have a monopoly on the magical arts.

This chapter focuses on a rereading of John 3 and John 14 in light of the racial perceptions of the Latinx community which includes immigrants and Dreamers (DACA). This chapter encourages a Spirit-filled Christian response to racism today in a two-fold manner. First, there is a need for self-awareness among local churches; This is done by reminding believers of the common birth experience in the Spirit. Second, we must not be complicit or stand idle when it comes to oppressive injustice against the marginalized and abandoned. We must engage in advocacy for the oppressed because this is the same thing that the Spirit as the Paraclete, the defender of God’s people, does for us. The struggle for justice and defense of the oppressed is a spiritual activity as well as a social one. My hope is that we can draw from these Gospel texts and recognize that the Spirit does have something to say about racism and how we view the Latinx community.

This article explores the relationship between social-political activism for Dreamers and the Johannine Spirit-Paraclete. It seeks to answer the question: what does the Paraclete have to do with Dreamers? The article proposes that we reconsider Johannine pneumatology for social-political activism by reimagining the Paraclete's forensic identity and activity. In particular, I explore how the Farewell Discourse of the Fourth Gospel describes the Paraclete within a literary context of child abandonment and need for advocacy. In addition, the metaphor for "orphan" in antiquity illuminates further aspects of the Paraclete's role as an advocate for the defenseless. The Paraclete's activity is not only applicable to the disciples, but also to Dreamers who are legislatively orphaned and abandoned by their own "fatherland" today. Finally, I explore how the Paraclete paradigm is reflected in the life of Sayra Lozano, a Pentecostal Latina advocate and Dreamer.

This article draws from the insights of Andy Lord's Pentecostal network ecclesiology in order to explain the emergence of Bible institutes and the challenges in theological education. By examining the educational history of the Latin American Bible Institute (LABI), we find how the network paradigm enables us to understand why Bible institutes have fostered the success, growth, and education of Latinos/as. Lord's network paradigm is also applied to the problems of diversity and inclusion in theological education. This article aims to offer insights into how theological education can be renewed through ethnocultural networks and pedagogies of inclusion.

This paper examines how Greco–Roman ethnoracial views inform our understanding of Peter and Cornelius’ encounter in Acts 10:28–48. By drawing from the Gentile perception of Jewish misanthropy mentioned by Diodorus of Sicily and Tacitus, we find that Peter was harboring a resistance to preach the gospel to the Caesareans. By rereading the narrative from this perspective, visions and Spirit–baptism within Acts 10 become divine events that challenge the reluctance to preach the gospel and associate with foreigners.

Even though the Spirit is mentioned twice, the Spirit in the book of Jude has often been neglected and disconnected from the writer's exhortation to contend for the faith. This paper aims to draw out Jude's pneumatology, the problem of dreamers in the early church, and identity of the opponents in order to demonstrate how they all relate to Jude's argument and the community's understanding of false charismatics. Jude writes to a community that was in danger of losing its faith by both forgetting what the apostles have taught and by neglecting the spiritual practice of praying in the Spirit. Jude makes the point that in order to combat false charismatics and contend for the faith, one must neither stop the community's engagement with the Spirit nor avoid pneumatic experiences altogether.

This article explores the implications of the community’s identity in the pentecostal hermeneutical methodology of Spirit-word-Community. By drawing from the insights of pentecostal, postcolonial, and Latino scholars, I seek to demonstrate that the pentecostal community’s identity cannot be neglected in the construction of meaning. A more robust pentecostal hermeneutical methodology that affirms the role of the community must recognize its contextual identity and not ground it in a transcendent or universal understanding of what it means to be a Pentecostal. This article will draw out the implications of reading Scripture by analyzing the identity of a Chicano and Latino community and its role within a pentecostal hermeneutic.

John 15.26 has always been understood to be a continuation of the Paraclete’s testimony to the world. In this essay, the readers are urged to rethink the Paraclete’s witness not in relation to the world but in relation to the disciples and Johannine community’s context. By analyzing the literary and historical context, the relationship between testimony and faith, and the receptors of the Paraclete’s ministry in the Fourth Gospel, we will actually deduce that the ones who need the witness of the Paraclete the most are the disciples and Johannine community who are undergoing a trial of faith. The recognition of the Spirit’s role as an inner testifier is also manifested in other sources such as ancient Jewish literature and the New Testament canon.

This book provides a Latino reading of John’s prologue with special attention to how the themes of race, kinship, and the empire are woven throughout the gospel. By drawing from the insights of Latino texts and theology, this book reveals how the prologue provides a lens to read the entire gospel with a keen awareness of Jesus’s engagement with people groups―from his own family to the Roman authorities. As I believe, the prologue shapes the reader’s imagination even before a person enters the narrative. By understanding the function of the prologue, we have a better sense on how we are to understand Jesus’s identity.

How do the Greco-Roman views of ethnicity inform our reading of the Spirit in the Fourth Gospel? This study not only reviews the role of ethnicity and race in the ancient world; it also proposes a bold new understanding of Johannine pneumatology. From an ethnocritical perspective, this study argues that the Spirit was articulated for an ethnically diverse Johannine community that was dealing with the issues of race relations. The Spirit is the divine breath of God that commissions Jesus for the redemption of all ethnicities. The Spirit is involved in the maternal birth of all ethnic members who are in the family of God. The Spirit draws all people despite their ethnic lineage and heritage. And the Spirit is actively involved as an advocate for the minoritized community undergoing synagogue violence. Will the members of the Johannine community still hold onto ethnic ideologies of dehumanization that were prevalent of their age? Can the Johannine community still have the Spirit and support ideologies of ethnic division and hate? This study seeks to answer these questions.