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In the twenty-second episode of the third season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Amy Peeler, the Kenneth T. Wessner Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. Peeler opens by sharing how she coordinates the roles which she is called to fill—roles which include serving as a spouse, a parent, a scholar, and a priest. She acknowledges that while being organized is critical, she also offers that being part of supportive communities proves paramount. With that end in mind, she expresses her gratitude to the ways her spouse, Lance, Wheaton College, and St. Mark’s Church all value, nurture, and encourage her calling. Peeler explores the origins of her calling to study the New Testament then also expanded into service as a constructive theologian and parish priest. A critical component in that expansive formation, according to Peeler, is her lifelong love for studying the Epistle to the Hebrews. She contends she may not presently have any additional questions she seeks to pose to the Epistle to the Hebrews. The lessons she learned from those previous studies—lessons concerning the nature of God, how to think about how God interacts with humanity, and, in turn, how to do theology—are lessons she believes informed her more recent efforts including books such as Women and the Gender of God and Ordinary Time: Seasons of Growth. As a scholar and priest, Peeler then closes by offering her unique reflections concerning how the university and the Church can grow in their service to one another—service Peeler most immediately sees in the lifelong spiritual growth for which she hopes and prays for the students she serves at Wheaton.
- Amy Peeler’s Ordinary Time: Seasons of Growth (InterVarsity Press, 2026)
- Amy Peeler’s Hebrews (Eerdmans, 2024)
- Amy Peeler’s Women and the Gender of God (Eerdmans, 2022)
- Patrick Gray and Amy Peeler’s Hebrews: An Introduction and Study Guide (T&T Clark, 2020)
- Amy Peeler’s You Are My Son: The Family of God in the Epistle to the Hebrews (T&T Clark, 2014)
Todd Ream: Welcome to Saturdays at Seven, Christian Scholar’s Review’s conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. My name is Todd Ream. I have the privilege of serving as the publisher for Christian Scholar’s Review and as the host for Saturdays at Seven. I also have the privilege of serving on the faculty and the administration at Indiana Wesleyan University.
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Our guest is Amy Peeler, the Kenneth T. Wessner Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. Thank you for joining us.
Amy Peeler: Uh, so glad to be here with you. Looking forward to our conversation.
Todd Ream: I’d like to spend most of our time talking about how you’ve come to understand the academic vocation, and in particular how you express it as, as a New Testament scholar.
Before doing so, however, I’d like to ask for your reflections on a topic that is as popular, as it is elusive, for most people, the relationship shared by work and life. I’ve already noted that you serve as a faculty member at Wheaton College, but you also serve as a spouse, a mother of three children, and the associate priest at St. Mark’s Church in Geneve, Illinois.
To begin, I just have to ask—how? I assume color-coded charts and graphs and things like this might be part of it, but how?
Amy Peeler: It’s a question that people pose pretty often, and my answer might sound kind of Christiany, but it is absolutely the true answer that God provides what is needed every day. I have the sense that I am called to these three things, uh uh, that I am called to my family life. I am called to the academy. I am called to the Church.
Maybe I would add a fourth because this kind of growing life of writing and speaking is now taking up a significant amount of focus, and so how could this be possible unless God had truly called in all directions and provides. Both in a sense like generally provides, but like daily. So you’re, you’re right. We have a very complicated Google calendar that we kind of analyze each evening beforehand.
A massive piece of this is that my husband is an amazing person, well organized, loves supporting me and we feel like as I do my vocation, he does his, there’s mutual benefit. It’s not a zero sum game in which we take away from one another, but as we press into our calls, we magnify each other. And that has been true for a very long time.
And I also have very respectful institutions. So as someone who might be contemplating, oh, I would like a multi-level vocation, right. I talk to a lot of people now who are saying, I’m discerning the possibility of a bi-vocational call to ministry and something else. The other thing to pay attention to is I have great institutions. Wheaton College celebrates that I do all of these things and supports me. My church understands that I’m only here one day a week. I’m here in spirit all the time. But I’m only here one day a week, so there’s not pressure to kind of monopolize my time or energy from any institution. They want to bless me allow me to flourish in all these spaces, and I’m incredibly grateful that that’s true.
Todd Ream: Thank you. How do you given the shifts that you have to make then between these roles over the course of any given day, how do you keep them properly ordered and your attention properly focused?
Amy Peeler: Oh, that’s a fun question. I think by virtue of maybe just created nature, personality focus is not challenging for me. And so I can pivot pretty easily. This morning is an example. I’m on the train working on my next book. I arrive here for a pretty intense pastoral care meeting. Uh, that’s not too difficult for me to change within the course of 10 minutes. And I recognize some people kind of need some adjustment time. I just don’t. And so maybe that allows these multiple things to happen.
Um, but how do you think about them rightly ordered? That’s a beautiful question. That feels like a lifelong question. I would have articulated early on that I am chiefly an academic. My pastoral life came much later. I was in my early thirties before I even started considering that. And then for about a decade, that was a very tiny part of my life. In the last two years, there’s been a pretty pivotal shift in which I really see the foundation of my vocation as the priestly one that then is manifest in the classroom five days a week, right. The, the timeline doesn’t, or the time I spend in places doesn’t quite align with how I think about it in an ontological sense.
Um, and maybe even more fundamentally than that, is my marriage, my oneness with my husband, and then maternally, I think very maternal actually through all spaces of my life. Interestingly, that could be because I research on maternal themes, but I think that’s also, I’m becoming more comfortable that that is a modality that I employ in whatever space I’m in.
So there’s some themes of unity, but then I think I’m in a process of discernment. If I were to think about them in the blocks of my life, how they might build upon one another. And I’m also open to those shifting. I don’t think God says you have to function in one way the entirety of one life. I recognize that there are different seasons and those may adjust as I go, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. When institutions such as the university and the Church consider how best to support people who’ve committed their lives to the service of their respective missions as institutions, what advice would you offer those administrators, those leaders to consider?
Amy Peeler: I have two things in mind. One that I’ve already mentioned, that if you are willing to hire someone who is bi-vocational, serving in multiple places, that you know upfront that that will take some sacrifice on your behalf. You don’t have that person for the whole of the work week. You don’t have their mental energy wholly, and so you can’t be selfish if you’ve contracted with that particular person.
Uh, the second thing that I would say is that when institutions invite someone in that is multiply called, make sure that you’re making space for that person to be wholly present. I can imagine a situation in which an academic institution says, sure, we’ll make some time for you to serve a Church, but when you’re here, don’t talk too much about that faith stuff or do the hardcore historical critical academics. You can leave that at the door.
Conversely, I can imagine church situations that say we don’t want all that highfalutin academic stuff. You can leave that at the door. You be present here in very practical, caring ways. Those kind of asks are temporary. They are not sustainable, because no human can kind of leave parts of themselves. You have to be willing, institutions have to be willing to welcome the wholeness of that person when they’re in your space.
I have a bit of experience in that, that now I’m in a vocational setting Church-wise, in which all of me is welcome. I can talk about my academic work without feeling like I’m being overly intellectual and that allows me more integrity and honesty in ministry. And Wheaton has always been very supportive and is increasingly so. They really like that I’m a pastor, especially as we are kind of constructing a new sense of a divinity school. This is an asset and not a detriment.
So if you hire the person, the institutions need to be willing to leave space for that other call, as well as support the whole person when they enter that particular space.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
I want to transition now to asking you about the details of your calling. You earned an undergraduate degree from Oklahoma Baptist University, and then an MDiv and a PhD in New Testament from Princeton Theological Seminary.
While a seminary and doctoral student at Princeton, what questions did you come to appreciate most about the study of New Testament? Why New Testament?
Amy Peeler: Well, the why of New Testament was birthed in my undergraduate, as you well know. Uh, just discovering the joy of thinking hard about Scripture. I had always loved the Bible as a kid, but then when I realized you can study this academically, sign me up. I was committed, kind of the first elective I took.
When I got to Princeton then, I respected and was so formed by a broader ecumenical conversation. So I had been in a space that was dominantly Baptist and there it was not. There was a lot of Presbyterians, but not wholly. And so to learn with colleagues who had lived out their faith differently, who thought differently, actually not only helped me to appreciate the breadth of the Church, but gave me a sense of my own identity. I think I was more strongly Baptist in my early years at Princeton than I was at Oklahoma Baptist University because I could see the differences and I came to appreciate the tradition that had raised me. So that’s one feature.
That’s one reason I love teaching at Wheaton is that we’re not denomination affiliated, and so we have this breadth. And students can discover that in my classroom as we walk through the New Testament texts.
The other thing about Princeton, and I really do attribute this to some primary academic mentors, Beverly Gaventa, Ross Wagner, Clifton Black, helped me to see that the questions that often energize us about humanity, human relationships, even human relationship to God, need to be under the perspective of understanding God first. I think it was always said, if we’re asking anthropological questions, what’s underneath those are theological commitments.
And that is a lesson that has been very manifest in my own work. Uh, as I think about gender relationships, we have these debates and fights, but really what I want to excavate is what those problems tell us is that we might have an inappropriate view of God. So God first, God primary, theology as the lead. That is something I learned from those professors that has shaped me and how I think as a theologian.
Todd Ream: Yeah, thank you. What then did those questions tell you about your emerging sense of vocation, how you understood yourself?
Amy Peeler: That’s a wonderful question. So I think they gave me confidence that if I had some skill for detail, let’s say I was good at parsing Greek verbs, right? That’s kind how I came in. I can do the mechanics.
My eight years at Princeton gave me more confidence that the questions that motivated me and then my budding skills, I would say they were very nascent at that point, but my budding skills in doing more constructive meta-level work, that those were aspects too. I think I would’ve entered in seminary saying, I’m really good at the details, I don’t like to think big picture.
But by the end being forced to do a dissertation in which you have to for hundreds of pages develop an argument and an argument that was very theological, gave me the growing confidence that I could think more philosophically, more broadly, holistically, in addition to this solid basis of good mechanics, I could do more.
Todd Ream: Thank you. Now, you mentioned that your calling to the priesthood was running sort of behind in time your calling to serve as a New Testament scholar.
In what ways did your time and tenure at Princeton Theological Seminary, contribute to that, even if it may have taken longer for it to come to fruition?
Amy Peeler: Well, it certainly was the getting of an MDiv degree. I was at that point as an undergrad, senior undergrad thinking, oh my goodness, I know I’m headed to a PhD. That’s many years. You want me to get a three years master’s rather than a two years master’s? What a waste of my time. But you as my dean of students, encourage me to say the MDiv is a good degree. And that has continually been a just an evidence of God’s providence.
And so doing an MDiv, these seeds were planted. I was thinking about the Church. This is something I so appreciated about Princeton. It’s very rigorously academic, but it is academics for the sake of the Church. And so every class was oriented in that way, and then there was specifics. Those were seeds planted that took a long time to come to fruition. But if I hadn’t done that degree, if I hadn’t been exposed to thinking about academic work serving the Church, I wouldn’t have been ready to say yes to the call when it came almost 10 years later.
Todd Ream: Yeah, thank you. You mentioned mentors such as Ross Wagner and Beverly Roberts Gaventa and their contribution to your sense of vocation and how it developed.
Authors that you read while in seminary or perhaps continue to turn to today, who nurture your vocation?
Amy Peeler: Wow. Yes, certainly I had read and been exposed to Richard Hays, whose one of the first books that I, oh my goodness, this is what it looks like to do biblical studies with beauty and with care. I, I don’t even know if I would’ve known that word at that point, but Richard is trained early on as a poet in literature, and that manifests in the creative ways that he reads.
And then when I got to Princeton and realized that Ross Wagner was his student, I thought, oh, amazing to kind of stand in this legacy in this line. Uh, being exposed to really rigorous feminist theologians Janet Soskice uh, Sarah Coakley, who were asking hard questions, but not from a posture of rejection of the faith, but to be within the faith, to call the faith to a deeper sense of its own commitment.
Uh, Sarah Coakley remains someone that is a muse for me. I hope that my work is in the spirit of hers. As of late, Katherine Sonderegger, who has now become I’m privileged to call a friend. She’s the kind of theologian that I want to be. And so Ephraim Radner maybe introduced at that point who became more important as I entered into my postdoc. His emphasis on the unity of the Church was very important in my formation.
So these are scholars that I want to continue to emulate, and when I read their work, I’m struck in its depth and power and beauty.
Todd Ream: Thank you. After serving as a postdoc, visiting assistant professor at Indiana Wesleyan, you were appointed an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College.
Would you describe the discernment process that led you to embrace and accept that appointment at Wheaton?
Amy Peeler: Well there, there were the logistics of the fact that the postdoc was not permanent. So the need to have an income was one discerning factor. But truly my decision to apply to Wheaton was encouraged by a Princeton Seminary friend who was at Wheaton, Keith Johnson, respected theologian, and I felt unworthy of Wheaton. And I said to him, I don’t know that I’m good enough. I’ve heard such amazing things about this institution. But he said, it’s worth a try. Why don’t you throw your name in the ring?
And so when I made it through each step, I just had this sense of kind of wonder and gratitude. Who am I get to get to this place? And so the discerning was not hard. When that invitation came, I had perceived through my conversations with Keith Johnson, as well as visits that, and it’s just legacy, this was quite an amazing place. Uh, we had no other immediate options on the table, and so it was, we have perceived an act of God’s mercy that there were not multiple doors for us to pick. This was the only one open, so we better walk through it. So I don’t know if you would call that discernment or simply acceptance.
Todd Ream: Yes. But you didn’t tell Stan Jones that at the time when you were negotiating your contract with him, right?
Amy Peeler: You know, you try to be a bit more self-assertive. That was a little hard for me at what was I 39 at that point? Yes.
Todd Ream: In what ways has Wheaton then contributed to your ongoing formation? You’ve echoed that it’s been a very positive place for you to not only contribute to your formation as a scholar, but also has been quite encouraging, if not in more recent years, become more encouraging of your identity and you’re calling as a priest.
Can you describe the ways you’ve experienced that at Wheaton and the ways the Wheaton College community has contributed?
Amy Peeler: Wheaton seems to me this just absolutely magnificent place. I could not ask for better colleagues who are thoughtful and faithful and contributing to their guilds and good friends, and it is a, we don’t just kind of all work together. We really do life together. And they’re the kind of people that you see are making an impact in the kingdom writ large. And you’re like, I get to call these people friends. That has continually been one of the greatest gifts.
So too our students, the students who come, want to be there. I never have to twist the arm of my students, pay attention in class. This matters. They want to be present. They want to study Scripture. And then the things that they do and they launch, I have sometimes felt like, oh, should I be on the front lines of serving the poor in India or do things—maybe, and maybe God would call me to that. But through these now decade plus, I’ve discerned that, no, my job is to equip those who do that frontline work, who are making an impact.
And so to hear back from grads of how even my little class contributed a few things to their formation is deeply encouraging. I’ve had a few invitations, other places I know all faculty do, and my husband and Lance and I have discerned that this place, there are a few other places where one can make such an impact and where one could be so happy. And so over and over again, we have chosen to stay.
Todd Ream: Thank you. As a New Testament scholar, the Epistle to the Hebrews has captured your attention for well over a decade, relating to numerous sermons, lectures, articles, and books such as You Are My Son: The Family of God in the Epistle of Hebrews, Hebrews: An Introduction and Study Guide, and Hebrews published by Eerdmans in 2024 and its Commentaries for Christian Formation Series.
I have to ask why the Epistle to the Hebrews? Lots of letters, books in the New Testament.
Amy Peeler: Lots of choices, yes.
Todd Ream: And you pick this one. Why? Why this one?
Amy Peeler: Well, initially as a high school student, I was really captured by the warning passages, so listeners might be familiar with these statements that if you sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment. There are a handful of those kind of statements that make it sound like if you mess up, sorry, you’re done. And it’s very spiritually sensitive, say 15-year-old, I found these texts terrifying.
I, you know, have gossiped. I have seen a movie I shouldn’t see. Uh, maybe I’m done, maybe God has left me or I’ve been cut off from God. I can articulate it in a silly way now, but it was, it, it really was terrifying at the time. And so through mentors good youth pastor, good teachers at my Christian school, I didn’t let go of that text, but wrestled with it. And so I think that was the initial capture.
And through their guidance, I saw there’s also an incredible assurance in this letter of Christ’s sovereignty of that you will endure this race as you hold on to him. So, coupled with a sobriety about the seriousness of Christian commitment is this incredible grace of Christ’s sufficient and wholly redemptive sacrifice.
In graduate school, it was also very practical. Uh, when kind of asked to decide what is going to be your field of research, I knew I was leaning toward the epistles. I find that the theology there, the practicality, I just loved the epistles and I found Jesus studies, to be honest, quite daunting. I do love Jesus. I love being in the Gospels, but the historicity of the Gospels to me, felt very complicated. And that was not interesting to me.
So if I’m in the epistles, of course the dominant choice is Paul, but there are so many people who do Paul and they seem to have lots of intense fights. And I am not much of a conflict kind of person. And I went to the Society of Biblical Literature and went to the Hebrews group and it was small and they were nice and they were friendly and they seemed like good people. And I thought, you know, I’ve always been interested in this book. And this book has so much of Israel’s Scripture, so much of the Old Testament.
If I’m going to be an undergraduate professor, which is what I always wanted to be and do, then it would be good for me to locate in a place in the New Testament where I have to stay attentive to the Old Testament so that I can teach holistically. And I had tried out a paper idea in a class on Exodus and Hebrews, and that went well, and I thought, I’ll cast my lot in this direction. So those were the features that led me to say Hebrews.
Todd Ream: So the questions that are to come about the dating of the gospel of Mark, and is it the first? That’s not something then I should entertain.
Amy Peeler: I’m very comfortable. I mean, this is the joy of teaching undergraduates and also pastoring, is that while I have my silos that I can go deep within, I need to be responsible to teach well the whole, and so I’m happy to talk about Mark.
Todd Ream: Well, we’ll stay with within the, I think it’s bigger than a silo here, but we’ll stay within this vein of thought here because I want to ask you, in what ways do you believe wrestling with the Epistle to the Hebrews has been important to you, and in turn, how you form the faith of the students you serve?
Amy Peeler: Wow. I think the dominant motif here is the embodiment of Christ, right? Hebrews has this beautiful Christology. Chapter one is just an unparalleled proclamation of Christ’s divinity and glory. Chapter two is just as rigorous a proclamation of His humanity. This is why Hebrews, though, there were always questions about authorship is accepted into the canon because of its theological heft and how it helped the Church navigate those, so knowing who Christ is.
And then knowing that Christ is at the right hand of the Father advocating for us, that shapes, transforms, feeds my prayer life. I mean, in this morning, just right before our podcast, I was meeting with a group, talking through an issue and praying, and just had this sense that if we don’t know the right words, Christ prays for us. So that is one dominant feature that shapes me as a person.
In teaching, I love being able to speak to students about God’s coherence and consistency. I believe this is also in Paul. I think Paul and Hebrews are friends, but this this feature of when God makes promises, God can be trusted to bring those promises to fruition. And so marinating in the story of Israel and God’s faithfulness that points to and is then fulfilled in Christ, allows me to teach all of our Scriptures coherently.
And again, other places in the New Testament, I think all do that work. But Hebrews does it at a level of explicitness that none others really can ever reach.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Perhaps your answer to this question is the same as it is for the students you serve, but in what ways is the manner in which you’ve wrestled with the Epistle to the Hebrews important for how you serve the parishioners at St. Mark’s?
Amy Peeler: Right, so it’s certainly the case that in preaching, because this text has been so in my mind and heart for so long, really almost 20 years now, it just kind of comes out in ways that I don’t know. It becomes an orienting—I try not to have a canon within a canon, and yet Hebrews is a lens through which I see the whole. So that’s going to come out in preaching, it’s going to come out in prayer, as I just said.
That, that’s going to come out in the assurance as people wrestle with what is my future. That’s so interesting. I was just saying to someone, let’s look at Hebrews 11 for when we don’t know the future, we know that God has the future, so it becomes very practical in pastoral instruction.
There is so much richness here that I’m thankful that it was a bit serendipitous that I kind of landed in this. I don’t know that I had the best reasons for choosing it. Yet, God has used it in multiple ways to serve my ministry life.
Todd Ream: Your relationship with the Epistle to the Hebrews dates back to your high school years, but is there a question still that you haven’t found a satisfactory answer?
Perhaps more even as a scholar, when you look at the Epistle to the Hebrews? Is there one question that just lurks there that you just at some point in time want to find a satisfactory answer prayerfully?
Amy Peeler: Yeah, that’s a wonderful question. I think like on a broad level, the answer is no. And I honestly have felt guilty about that because I have other colleagues who have 30 articles in the queue of things they want to do in Hebrews.
To be frank, I feel like with the publication of the commentary, I have said my piece about Hebrews. I’m actually very pleased with how that work turned out. Reception has been quite positive. That is what I wanted to say about Hebrews.
Now teaching it, it really thrills me. I have doctoral students working on Hebrews. I’m interested in their questions. I love being asked to go to an institute, a university or church, and teach Hebrews that fully energizes me, but I don’t have this burning question. Instead, as I walk through Hebrews and I did last semester with my master’s students, there would be a number of little details that I’m like, you know, I’m not fully satisfied with this answer. I want to think more about that. But they’re not at the level of, I must get this done.
And I think for me, and maybe this says something about scholarly vocation, mine has been in seasons, so Hebrews was this piece for a long time. I really have pivoted and there are questions burning in my soul how to understand the life of Mary, how to understand how Paul talks about the incarnation. Todd, those wake me up every day.
They’re with me as I go to sleep, and so maybe those are so prominent right now, that maybe when I conclude that work, if I ever do, I kind of have an inclination I’ll write about this for the rest of my days, but if I reach a period of conclusion, maybe I’ll come back to Hebrews. But right now those keep me, keep me going.
Todd Ream: One work that seems to be an extension of that work from Hebrews, but also was one in which you opened a new chapter, began a new chapter in your scholarly career, was in 2022 when you published Women and the Gender of God. In what ways did this book and the work that you did for it demand that you extend your sense of vocation as a New Testament scholar? Perhaps what might be more formally referenced as a New Testament theologian?
Amy Peeler: Right. Uh, let me first say, because maybe this isn’t evident, but you are precisely right that it was my work in Hebrews that birthed this. So my specific focus in Hebrews was the family God as Father. I found that incredibly positive. But as I mentioned, I was being exposed to feminist theologians who had critiques on God’s fatherhood, and I couldn’t reconcile, I couldn’t understand both.
And so at my dissertation defense, you know, they ask you, what do you want to do next and I basically said something like the project that became women and the gender of God. So it is Hebrews that led me there, which is funny because Hebrews doesn’t have any controversial passages about gender, right. I often say like my Hebrews life, no one hates me. I can just talk and there is no controversy. And then I have this other part of my life that is very different.
But to get to your second question. I could have written this book, which I know the title is not as detailed as readers might have wished for, but largely its nexus is Jesus and the life of Mary. Three of this body chapters focus on different pieces of her life as revealed in the New Testament. I could have stopped there and that would’ve been a sweet book that a Protestant wrote about Mary, how fun. I think the exegesis, for me, it’s one of the richest exegetical works I’ve ever done. The discovery just was unending. I could have stopped there.
But because the world has some tensions about gender, because I see those tensions in the men and women that sit in my office hours with deep questions, I knew I couldn’t stop there. I had to press as I was taught past the anthropology of Mary and what she says about humanity, to get to the tectonics of our view of God. And that’s the controversial part.
And so then there are three chapters that are very theologically constructive on God the Father, God the Son, and how we think about gendered categories as given in the language of Scripture with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.
So that’s why it took me over a decade, I think, is that I knew I was playing outside of the bounds of my discipline. I had to read widely in Catholic and Orthodox and systematic and historical theology. And I’m, I know that I failed in some ways and fell short, but the risk is worth it to me both because I reject the strict silos of our subdisciplines. I think innately Biblical work is theological.
Theological work needs to be Biblical. And so maybe in some sense, I say I’m going to take the risk and do it. But I aimed to do as good of work as I can. I don’t pretend that I’m trained as a systemathician but I believe that I am growing into a voice of a constructive theologian.
And the nervousness with which I released that book, the care with which my editor and the editorial team handled that book, the patience that they gave me, that I had to get it as right as I could, and now the reception has proven to me that I do have this voice that I didn’t know that I, that I am a theologian. I am quite comfortable now with owning that for myself, and that’s quite a shock. If you would’ve said that to my maybe even 25-year-old self, I would’ve totally rejected it. But now that’s right.
Todd Ream: Yeah. The argument that you make in that book then, what is it you’re hoping to offer, say to your students at Wheaton College, but also parishioners in spaces and places such as St. Mark’s?
Amy Peeler: That’s an interesting question. For my students, that’s easy because my editor as editors do, invite you as you write to imagine the person you’re writing to across from your laptop. And it was always the students who come into my office. Now, I recognize maybe the academic level of this book might be a bit of a stretch for say a sophomore. Um, but that work was necessary for me. I needed to cross all my T’s and dot all my I’s for myself.
But the voice of the text is for them and at base, I want them to know that God values all humans. And you might say, yeah, we got that. That’s pretty basic. But I think the story of the brokenness of the Church and culture says, no, we haven’t really understood that. And then I had to make a choice, and this was a bit painful for me because I’m an includer. I wanted to speak to everyone, but I discerned that I had to at least first, maybe not forever, but first, speak to women. And so the book, the first sentence is what I want people to know. God values women.
Now, I don’t think that leaves out you, our brothers because I think as women are valued, because we both share God’s image, this is a good for men and there are elements in which that’s drawn out. I think there are others who are doing excellent work on masculinity. But I had to play my part, to be my role in the body of Christ, and it was to focus on God’s valuing of women.
And the way to do that is not only look at Mary, which is like amazing, and I think a bit of a mic drop moment. If God really hated women, God would’ve chosen a different way to save the world other than pregnancy. But then below that, who is the God who has chosen this? This is the God who is not male nor masculine, and though the Savior has come as a male, He is male as no other. So the pieces are intimately connected with one another. When we know the majesty of God, then we know our value.
Todd Ream: Yeah, thank you. Before we move on, I want to ask you about your most recent book then now, which thanks to Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, any other mass scale outlet, Advent now begins in early August, if not maybe even in late July, it seems, which the upside of that is, it saves us from four to five months of the longest two portions of the church calendar we know as Ordinary Time.
However, your most-
Amy Peeler: I have it sitting here. I have an advanced copy. It’s in the flesh. It will look better than this, but this is the paper copy they sent.
Todd Ream: Yeah, that most recent book though, Ordinary Time: The Season of Growth, you argue ordinary time is far from being simply time that is committed to less frenetic expressions of consumerism than say Advent is.
Would you share what significant amount or ordinary time and why the Church, and also to keep asking your students shouldn’t overlook it?
Amy Peeler: So this was a fun project. It came by invitation through a friendship with Esau McCaulley, and we’ve worked together now on a few projects and I so respect him. So being invited by him is always an easy yes. And I was intrigued by the possibility of filling this gap. When they designed this series, they didn’t first imagine that there would be a book on ordinary time, because as you say, it doesn’t have kind of feast or you know, fasting. It’s kind of just the thing.
But of course it’s the longest thing in the church year, and I was intrigued at the breadth of, you really can almost talk about anything with ordinary time, and so I hope I’ve discerned well, what I’ve chosen to focus on. That gave me a love for the season that I’ve never had. I, as you know, love Christmas, and so the summer is just to endure, to get to the fall, which is to get to Christmas.
I now really have a different picture of this beauty of God’s work in the normal, in the regular, in the daily, in the weekly shaped by people like Tish Harrison Warren, Liturgy of the Ordinary or the, the book series, Every Moment Holy. I hope I’m building upon such realization that God meets us daily. And in the times in which there’s not much going on, is actually, I think when we grow crisis moments or celebratory moments, we have these epic events, but then we need some normal time to reflect on them. And that’s what this season offers.
So, you know, I will think about what this means for students. I, you know, had complete, I’ll talk about the project. There’s a large feature here that I exegete the story of Abraham and Sarah and their family because these are texts that are present in ordinary time and I think they actually display, even though they’re like totally extraordinary because they’re the family of the covenant, there are some ordinary experiences that I think they have things to teach us. So I really enjoyed being in that part of the canon, learning from that, so I draw from that for students, but I’ll be, it’ll be fun to see as this comes out next year, how it manifests in my classroom.
I think the Church now I’m in a season in which the Church is planning to celebrate the release of this. Maybe it’ll be a study. So again, check back with me in a year and we’ll see how those things have played out.
Todd Ream: Thank you. Before we close, I want to shift now to talking about how you’ve come to understand the academic vocation writ large, and in particular from your vantage point, what characteristics and or qualities define it and in, and also what practices nurture it.
Amy Peeler: I think those of us who are called into academics are given both the responsibility and the privilege to do careful, deep, long, patient work. We don’t know when our careful, long, deep, patient work will be needed to serve the academy and the Church.
And so the skills that are necessary for that kind of work, right, to do these long form projects, like I grieve, I felt so guilty that Women in the Gender of God took so long, especially once I had kind of committed to it. It was another four or five years. I always felt like, oh, I’m behind the eight ball. But now in perspective, I can see I needed that time. I needed that time to do the work. As I’ve said publicly, a few places, I needed to become the person who could write the book, and so that’s, I think what academics does.
And so the skills then at base maybe is patience, that you can’t get quick answers, that you have to spend the time, you have to spend the time in things that aren’t immediately like, you know, exegeting a number of verbs may not seem like it’s changing the world. But that’s the kind of foundational work you need to do to say something that will change someone’s life. And an academic maybe has to be comfortable with that long, careful toil that you only get a few glimmers of how it might impact someone. But you’ve got to keep with that work.
Now, the toil maybe is the wrong word because I find that work very exciting. Every time I’m in the Word, pretty much every time, I discover some aspect of God’s character, I find it so energizing to do that work. And then there are times in which it is, it causes me to cry. My brain hurts. It’s hard, but even God is so present in those times as well.
Todd Ream: Thank you. To do that kind of work then, from your vantage point, what intellectual virtues and moral virtues do scholars need to cultivate, and when it comes to theological virtues, do scholars need to pray to receive?
Amy Peeler: Oh, that’s beautiful. I’ve mentioned patience. I think within that is humility and inquisitiveness. I don’t know everything. And I’d like to discover, I think there’s a virtue of trust there that if this is God’s world, this is the liberal arts mantra and I fully believe it. If this is God’s world, I’m not afraid to read widely. I’m not afraid to read people that disagree because there might be things I need to know, because I don’t know everything.
Paired with that, and this I think takes a bit more maturity, or at least it has for me, is a discipline, a virtue of, of confidence that God has given me something to say. Yes, I can learn from others, but there are ways in which in my forties I’ve arrived at this place of saying this humble confidence is also a godly moral virtue, that I may not be totally right. I don’t see everything, but I have something to share because God has given it. God has given me the time and the resources to discover it.
I still want to grow more and learn more and be in conversation, but I have something to contribute. So those that trust and patience and humility and confidence are some of the primary virtues that we can cultivate as we pray for them.
Todd Ream: What vices then do you believe may be lurking that we need to confront?
Amy Peeler: Yeah. I think the vice of tribalism. It’s very easy in the academic world and in the church world to imagine that my people are the best people. Uh, and I think the way to push against that kind of unhealthy silo—that who think like me are really the only ones worth thinking with the only way around that I think is personally being in spaces where you can meet someone of a different tribe.
That’s why I really appreciate some organizations I’m a part of. I immediately think of the Center for Pastor Theologians on which I’m on the board. I’m one of the fellows. I meet people that you wouldn’t imagine we would be in the same place. I, as a female Episcopal priest say, just became friends with the man who served after John Piper at Bethlehem Church for a time.
On paper, not imagined that we would ever hang out, yet by the power of Christian community, of the work of the Spirit, I have gotten to know people that demographically, would not only be distant from me, but possibly an enemy and have seen in them the work of the Spirit.
So that is a vice I want to continue to push against and try to be, and again, one doesn’t have to say, well, I believe everything you believe and we, no, there, there are differences, but those differences can be worked out across a cup of coffee.
Todd Ream: Thank you. For our last question then, I want to ask you, and we’ve been talking about this in various ways already, but as a priest and as a faculty member, in what ways can the Church be of greater service to the university, but also how can the university be of greater service to the Church?
Amy Peeler: I think on a very practical level here, that churches, if they have universities proximate to them, twofold, number one, there’s a lot of young people there in this time of life who feel very unsettled. And so the Church can be a place of stability. Uh, they can be a place of community that’s not just 18 through 22-year-olds. Actually this population of students longs to learn from kids as well as older people. So that’s important.
I think at the administration level the university, certainly Christian universities, but even those who are not, are committed to some of the same virtues as churches are, namely inquisitiveness, seeking after truth. And so instead of churches kind of imagining, oh, they do things that we don’t care about, or they’re kind of, you know, ivory tower, no, we actually are all people who want to do truth or pursue truth. We might do that in different modalities, but how could we partner?
For the university to serve the Church then, conversely to work against that, kind of looking down one’s nose on those who aren’t academics, this is maybe something I need to, advice I need to push against as well. I’m among people who have deep conversations every day, all day long. I am not often around people who do jobs that they just have to kind of get through and survive. But there are good lessons for me to learn there.
So I think the university could do different kinds of learning with the wide variety of people in the Church who have things to teach that aren’t philosophical, intellectual. That’s a holistic kind of learning that the university could draw from rather than say, we are doing all the important stuff.
I think I’ve come to believe, and maybe Princeton taught me this, that God’s primary vehicle of working in the world, I think is through the local church and how the university can partner with that and serve that, it’s a good question to ask, but with all the good that the university does, and this is what we say to our students, you are going to be fed here at Wheaton, but if you don’t have a connection to a local church, it’s going to be a moment in time that won’t endure. This is where you’re rooted in the Body of Christ. And for the university to realize and serve that is only to their benefit.
Todd Ream: Thank you very much. Our guest has been Amy Peeler, the Kenneth T. Wessner Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. Thank you for taking the time to share your insights and wisdom with us.
Amy Peeler: Thank you. This has been a great joy. Thank you for the chance to reflect.
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Todd Ream: Thank you for joining us for Saturdays at seven Christian Scholars reviews conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. We invite you to join us again next week for Saturdays at Seven.
