Don Howell's "God-Christ Interchange in Paul: Impressive Testimony to the Deity of Christ" in terms of Dogmas, Doctrines, Distinctives, and Details.*

Dogmas. Howell addresses the Biblical support within Pauline literature for the affirmation of Christ's deity, and subsequently his role within the Trinity. This is a Dogma level issue because it is crucial to the Gospel message God emplaced as part of his plan for the salvation of mankind. Since the paper largely provides scriptural evidence for orthodox Christology, the entire review could be considered under this category. However, since not all the evidence of Christ's divinity is necessary to proclaim it, the line between Dogma and Doctrine becomes blurred as some (and not always the same), but not all biblical evidence is necessary for God to save (for the sake of this review they will be treated below).

Howell presupposes a high view of scripture since it is used almost exclusively to support each of the language-interchange categories presented into Pauline literature.

 I managed the book department of a retail store when I was in high school around the time the Harry Potter novels were being made into movies. The new book release dates were being shuffled to coincide with new movie releases, and since our store was adjacent to a movie theater I was beleaguered by questions and rumors from fanatics day in and day out. I developed an aversion to all “wizard” things and to this day I still stubbornly refuse to read the novels (or even watch the movies). Yet, I must acknowledge that my bias against J.K Rawlings has nothing to do with her books, for how can I dislike something I've never experienced? In fact, logic states that they would be very entertaining, for how can the testimonies of so many be wrong? No, my disdain stems from the hype and my bad experience with the fans surrounding J.K. Rawlings' works. I know I'm not alone in the way I've reacted, for tragically this is precisely the way millions of people have reacted to the story of Jesus Christ. They've become turned off to Jesus Christ simply because they're sick and tired of hearing about “Christian” things and may have had bad experiences with “Jesus Freaks.” Just as the only way for me to overcome my prejudice toward Rawlings is to read her books, so too must others overcome their prejudice toward Jesus by reading his books, the gospels. This is the goal of Philip Yancey in his book “The Jesus I Never Knew,” as he attempts to strip away the distracting (and often erroneous) hype that encrusts the gospel of Jesus Christ.