This is the Baymont podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-host, Brent Billings. Today we're

joined by a special guest, Dr. Gary Birge, author of Interpreting the Gospel of John and one of

the foremost authorities on John. He was a professor at Wheaton College for 25 years and now serves as

a New Testament scholar at Calvin Theological Seminary. Dr. Birge, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Brett. It's really great to be with you guys. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Yeah, and if you want to add anything to the introduction, talk about your history, your journey,

whatever you want to add to what I said. Yeah, thanks for asking. Yeah, well, I have had a very

full career in New Testament studies. It began at Fuller Seminary where I had the privilege of

studying under some really amazing New Testament scholars who encouraged me to do a PhD in the United

Kingdom. That's what I did. I worked with I Howard Marshall and was examined by James Dunn.

My work was in the theology of the Gospel of John, one very narrow aspect of it, the Christology

and the New Montology or the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John.

And yeah, so that interest has stayed with me and it carried me into my career really. I talked

at a couple of colleges in Chicago. One was North Park University in the city and then I was at

Wheaton College for 25 years. Both of those were just great experiences. Now coming into Calvin's

Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, it's a very different venue. You know, it's funny.

When you're with undergraduates, juniors and seniors who are really bright and curious,

they're really wanting to spend a lot of time with speculative theology and ideas and chasing

down rabbit holes, that kind of thing. But you know what, a seminary folks are very pragmatic.

They say to themselves, look, I'm going to be bringing this word to people. How am I going to

preach John 3? Just don't give me theories about rebirth. I want to know about it. So it's a very

different community. They're older. So I don't have conversations anymore that I sort of miss about

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