I am excited to introduce my next book, Scripting the Son, which will be published in the Studies in Early Christology series by Cascade later this year. My last 18 months have been devoted to the research, writing, and editing of this book, and I am happy to share that the manuscript is now complete. By way of introduction, the back-cover summary and table of contents follow below. I look forward to sharing more about this new book in the months to come! Summary In Scripting the Son, Kyle R. Hughes analyzes how dialogical texts in the Old Testament presented early Christian exegetes with ridd ..read more

Here’s to 2024! But before we ring in the new year, a quick update on the status of my work in 2023. My primary focus was drafting the bulk of my new academic book Scripting the Son: Prosopological Exegesis and the Making of Early Christology, forthcoming from Cascade in their Studies in Early Christology series. This project expands and deepens my treatment of the subject of prosopological exegesis in the pre-Nicene period from my doctoral research and subsequent monograph The Trinitarian Testimony of the Spirit: Prosopological Exegesis and the Development of Pre-Nicene Pneumatology (Brill, 2 ..read more

Logos recently published a piece from me on “Navigating Pneumatology: How to Study the Holy Spirit” for their Word by Word blog as part of their recent series on pneumatology. In this piece, I introduce some lexical issues related to the study of the Holy Spirit and then identify three sources of pneumatological reflection in the early church: the Bible, the liturgy of the church, and personal or corporate experience. As I conclude: Our gospel, ultimately, must be Trinitarian in shape: the Father sends the Son, our saving King, who in turn sends the Holy Spirit to indwell and empower his peop ..read more

Summer is here, and I have some speaking engagements that I’m very much looking forward to. If you’re attending one of these events, be sure to drop me a note so we can connect! Common Roots: Ancient Evangelical Future Conference, Robert Webber Center, Trinity School for Ministry, Pittsburgh, PA (June 8-10) I’ll be helping lead a K-12 education ministry focus group as we study the theme of “Beginning with Moses and All the Prophets: Teaching the Christian Faith from the Old Testament.” Repairing the Ruins: Association of Classical Christian Schools Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA (June 21-24 ..read more

Logos recently published a piece from me on “How the Early Church Found the Trinity in the Old Testament” for their Word by Word blog. Their blog has several excellent recent pieces on the doctrine of the Trinity; it was an honor to be asked to contribute. In this piece, I focus on three aspects of the Old Testament that are unknown to or under-appreciated by many modern readers—but were nevertheless critical to early Christians’ developing understanding of the Trinity. Here’s my conclusion: Thus, while it would no doubt be a mistake to say that such an approach to Old Testament interpretatio ..read more

Note: This piece was just published in the spring 2023 of Classis, the journal of the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS). I’m happy to make the piece more broadly available below: What time is it? The importance of such a simple question should not be underestimated. Jesus, after all, castigated his opponents for failing to rightly “interpret the signs of the times” (Matt 16:3), which led them to miss the coming of the Messiah. Much better, then, for us to be like the men of the tribe of Issachar, who rallied to David because they “had understanding of the times” (1 Chr 12:32 ..read more

I recently had the privilege of giving an interview to Blake Adams at Modern Reformation on the subject of “Christian Education as Soulcraft,” which was published online and in the January/February 2023 print issue of the magazine. Our conversation ranged from the intersection of Christian education with monasticism and asceticism to some of the major shortcomings of Christian schooling today. Be sure to check it out! The full interview can be found over at Modern Reformation here ..read more

With the publication of Teaching for Spiritual Formation in January (along with a related article for the International Journal of Christian Education on the role of asceticism in Christian education), I marked the end of a seven-year period of always working on a major writing project. Granted, this is still four years less than George R.R. Martin has (supposedly) been working on The Winds of Winter, but I suppose I haven’t been as distracted with producing a tv show or being a celebrated conference figure (just wait!). In any event, since working on my dissertation from 2014 to 2017, I then ..read more

I’ve added two recent book reviews that I have recently had published in Review of Biblical Literature here. Interested in the Apostolic Fathers? I’ve reviewed Chun Ling Yu’s Bonds and Boundaries among the Early Churches: Community Maintenance in the Letter of James and the Didache. Interested in the early Christian apologists? I’ve reviewed D.H. Williams’ Defending and Defining the Faith: An Introduction to Early Christian Apologetic Literature. The temptation is always to sign up to do more book reviews (free books! learn new things!) but they are, surprisingly, a fair amount of work ..read more

It’s been about six months since the release of Teaching for Spiritual Formation, and I’ve been very pleased with initial interest in the book! As I anticipated, teachers and administrators in classical Christian schools have resonated the most with the book, but it’s been great to see other groups engage with the book’s ideas as well. The book hit “#1 New Release” status in “Adult Christian Ministry” on Amazon.com for a couple of days around its release, so many thanks to everyone who bought a copy. This summer I had the privilege of (virtually) sitting down with David I. Smith, director of t ..read more