Pre-Assembly Workshop

Reading Luke Backwards

Rev. Dr. Eric D. Barreto

Princeton Theological Seminary

This year’s Pre-Assembly Workshop will be led by one of the United States leading New Testament scholars. Dr. Barreto believes “some stories are not meant to be read once and in order. Some stories are meant for us to revisit over and over again.” The Gospel of Luke is such a story. Luke's Gospel can help us learn the story of Jesus's cross and resurrection anew, afresh,

and perhaps from a different vantage point. Thus, the invitation to read Luke backwards. In a world turned upside down, how might we approach this narrative if we start at the foot of the cross, at the threshold of the empty tomb? And what if we end the story where it starts, in the arms of Mary? From the end to the beginning, Luke narrates a good news that transforms a ruptured world.

Eric D. Barreto is Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary and an ordained Baptist minister. He is the author of Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16 (Mohr Siebeck, 2010), the co-author of Exploring the Bible (Fortress Press, 2016), and editor of Reading Theologically (Fortress Press, 2014).

recruiting, training, and supporting leaders. He has a passion for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for helping new people find faith and Christian community. He believes the church can and will grow younger and more diverse and that there is nothing more powerful than God’s love because it can transform first the human heart and then the world.

Pastor Hirsch is the Executive Director of Christian Community and Leadership (USA) for the ELCA (since February 2019). His responsibilities include starting new churches, developing congregational vitality, leadership and candidacy, seminaries and colleges, youth and young adult ministries including the national youth gathering, multicultural ministries, disability ministries, and the directors for evangelical mission who work in synods for congregations.