Dr. J. Richard Middleton is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary and Roberts Wesleyan University, in Rochester, NY.

He holds a PhD from the Free University, Amsterdam (in a joint-degree program with the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto); an MA in Philosophy from the University of Guelph, Canada; and a BTh from the Jamaica Theological Seminary, Kingston, Jamaica.

A native of Jamaica, he immigrated to Canada for graduate studies and moved to the USA for a teaching position at Colgate Rochester Divinity School. He is past president of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (2019–2021) and past president of the Canadian-American Theological Association (2011–2014). He is currently a Fellow of Every Voice for Kingdom Diversity and a Scholar with Global Scholars Canada.

Middleton’s research area is Old Testament theology with a focus on creation, suffering, and the ethics of power. His vision is to help Christians and interested others gain insight into the empowering worldview of the Scriptures.

Dr. Middleton is the author of Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God (Baker Academic, 2021); A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014); and The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (Brazos, 2005).

He co-authored (with Brian Walsh) The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (IVP Academic, 1984) and Truth is Stranger than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (IVP Academic, 1995).

He is currently working on two new books, one (with Eerdmans) on the power dynamics between prophet and king in 1 Samuel and the other (with Baker Academic) on the biblical worldview for our troubled times.

Middleton has co-edited (with Garnett Roper) A Kairos Moment for Caribbean Theology: Ecumenical Voices in Dialogue (Pickwick, 2013) and (with Douglas Cullum) Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis: Essays in Tribute to Paul Livermore (Pickwick, 2020).

He has published articles and book chapters on the doctrine of creation; lament prayer and the problem of suffering; the dynamics of human and divine power in the books of Genesis, Samuel, and Job; and the relationship of biblical faith to contemporary science. His books have been published in Korean, French, Indonesian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Richard is married to Marcia, his teenage sweetheart (they met at church in Jamaica); because of their mixed cultural heritage, they regard themselves as “Jamericadians.” They have two sons, Andrew (who lives and works in Abu Dhabi as a sales representative for a tech company) and Kevin (a physician assistant in western New York state).

For more details, see Middleton’s bio on the Global Scholars Canada website: https://www.globalscholarscanada.ca/gsc-scholars/richard-middleton/

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Welcome to 12-Minute Convos with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, His creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Dr. Middleton.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I'm in Rochester, New York, western New York State, about seven hours west of New York City.

I've had the opportunity to look at your resume, your bio, a brief version of the things that you've committed your life to.

And after looking at it, I feel tired, right?

Because when I think about the work and the dedication that you had to put in to achieve all that you've done, I wonder what was the starting point?

The starting point was as a young student in high school, about 14 years old, I started getting involved in the church.

I had been a Christian before, but not involved.

And in learning about faith, my sense of the world was that I didn't understand the world.

Much of it seemed to be chaos to me.

And I had a small area of meaning, and I wanted to spread out and ground it in my faith, connect with what's out there in the world.

So I wanted to understand the world, understand culture.

Growing up in Jamaica, I want to understand Caribbean culture, how it's related to the west.

I had at age 17, I'd have these dialogues with Rastafari on the streets of New Kingston to try and understand where they were coming from and express my faith to them.

And then as that went on, I went to theological studies.

And the more I would understand about the Bible and theology, I was making more sense of the world.

For me, academic study was never ivory tower.

It was always existential about how I could make sense of the world, like weaving a web of meaning.

Because I was a very shy, introverted kid.

And to have the grounding to face the world without fear meant I had to understand it and get involved in it.

But it started as a high school student.

How did you meet Jesus?

How did the foundation begin?

It began with my father, who was a Christian, who has been in the police force.

He ended up becoming the commissioner of police in the 1970s under Prime Minister Michael Manley.

But earlier than that, he sat me down in the backyard on a big rock and told me about Jesus.

And I accepted Jesus as my savior as about 11-year-old or so, but didn't get much growth in the faith until 14.

I started to go to church regularly.

Where was your mother and what was her role?

So she was Jewish originally, but not raised religiously Jewish.

So my grandparents on her side were Jewish and knew that.

But she and my father, while they were dating, became Christians, converted at a tent meeting by a Welsh evangelist who had lived in Jamaica all his life.

And so they became Christians.

She was not quite as articulate in her faith as my father was, but she was still there.

When was the first time you crossed in terms of traveling to see the West?

I was 12 years old and my family went on a vacation.

We went to visit relatives in Virginia Beach, U.S. in Toronto, and then had a one-week vacation in Mexico as part of it.

I was 12 years old.

I was the oldest of four.

We all got back and thought, wow, that was quite amazing.

First time I'd ever been on a plane.

And so it was 1967, so the Montreal Expo in Canada was going on.

And my father picked up a watch there for me that had the Expo symbol on it.

And my first watch was too big for my little arm, but I wore it for many years.

When did you realize that feeding the knowledge block of theology was a bottomless pit?

Is that even accurate?

Well, I wouldn't...

bottomless pit sounds like negative.

I would say it is infinite joy.

Yeah, infinite joy.

I love that.

There's always more to learn.

So anyone who thinks they have wrapped it all up and knows everything, they don't know what they're talking about.

So I always understand that.

Many people have said something like this.

I say this myself when I'm teaching.

You know, maybe a quarter of what I'm telling you is wrong, but I don't know which quarter, so please help me out.

I only know certain things and I'm guessing at the rest and stretching towards knowledge, but I don't have all the answers by any means.

And you know, you can change my mind if you respond and engage.

What's been the biggest thing to affect you in the least amount of time?

So it happened when I was about 30 years old and I was living in the U.S. as a student at the time on a student visa.

I had moved from a faith that was very...

the faith I inherited in the Caribbean was very much otherworldly.

And I had come to understand that Christianity is really about God wanting to redeem the world, you know, and to bring shalom even in the present.

But my life went astray.

Many things went wrong.

I'd won within about two or three months and I lost my way and I fell into darkness.

And that was happening at about age 30.

And then I had to find a new way and I took a course on the Psalms.

And I learned about the Psalms of lament where you pray your pain to God.

And it's a transformative experience.

And I began to do that.

And that was what in the shortest period of time changed my life to realize the love of God that could overwhelm you in times of darkness and difficulty and lift you up and begin to move you out of that.

Sounds like a cure for depression.

I had actually stopped praying.

I hadn't realized I'd stopped praying.

But when I started praying again, I realized that I couldn't pray to a God who I believed was good and didn't seem to be intervening in my difficult circumstances.

But the lament psalm showed me that you can pray to God when everything is going crushing to the bottom.

And guess what?

God listens to you and hears you and embraces you in that situation.

So that was absolutely life-changing for me.

You talked about your father, him putting you on the rock to sit.

Did you have moments like that with your children?

Not exactly the same.

My children have not quite followed in my path.

One of them has.

The other one says, Dad, I'm a different spiritual path than you are.

He lives in Abu Dhabi right now doing sales for a Rochester company.

But he still puts his friends who are interested in the faith in touch with me to have discussions.

And he will have discussions with me.

But we're not on the same path.

It's different.

What is that like?

I have three boys and I ask the question not understanding their path because of where they are now, right?

Because they are on the path right now.

So what is that like emotionally as a father?

It's difficult, but I have come to the place where I commit him and both of them to the hands of God.

That time God will guide them and lead them.

And there is a prayer that comes out of the Christian liturgy for baptism.

When you baptize someone, you pray for them about guidance and the presence of the Spirit.

And I pray that prayer many times for my two sons.

Let's talk about baptism.

Baptism of the Spirit.

Baptism by what?

In all of your studies, open that up for us, please.

The way I understand it is when you commit yourself to Christ, you are brought into his body, become part of the body of Christ.

And the Apostle Paul uses baptism and immersion as a metaphor for that.

We are immersed in Christ in the Spirit.

We begin to be transformed.

We want to follow him in a life of discipleship.

And there are many different traditions.

I'm in a church tradition, a Methodist tradition, which views that you may baptize infants if you want.

That doesn't save them, but it's a commitment as a part of the parents to bring them up in the faith.

Or you baptize adults later on.

I was baptized at 16, so I had that experience.

So it was a conscious choice that I'm going to join myself publicly to this body of believers.

And so baptism is a metaphor for immersion, basically immersion in Christ, in the Spirit, in the church, becoming part incorporated into this body.

What's on the horizon for you?

I retired formally from academic teaching two years ago and found the first year busier than my previous career because I'm retired.

So I have free time.

So people ask you to do things and you say, yes, yes, yes.

And you're doing so much.

But what God has laid in my heart is a calling to take all I have learned over the years and write about it in accessible books that teach people.

So when I'm gone, that's still there.

So within about three to four weeks, I'll be submitting a book manuscript.

And then I have this rewrite of my original book, The Transforming Vision, the next year.

And then I have three more book contracts and at least one or two more books I want to write after.

So my vocation right now, my calling is to write these books, get them out there and to the public.

So that's where I am right now.

That's what my calling is right now.

My passion is right now.

Tell us of your wife and how your education has affected her, please.

So my wife has been a great education in loving someone who is different from you.

I think many marriages have that way.

She is not academically inclined in that.

She don't want to think about theology and philosophy and so on.

But she is academic.

She did a master's degree in public health nutrition, and she has always worked in the sector of nutrition and communication of health, working government of her universities and so forth.

Very practical person, very loving, caring person, very ordered person, likes the world well-ordered.

I'm a chaotic person.

I'm juggling many balls and so on.

She doesn't understand that.

I don't understand her, but we love each other anyway.

And we've learned a term from the philosopher Gabriel Marcel, I think that's his name, existentialist Catholic philosopher, creative fidelity.

That is faithfulness in a relationship requires constant innovation on your part to adapt to the changes of the other person.

Faithfulness is not being rigid because if you are rigid and the other person changes, you fall apart.

So the only way to keep a long-term relationship going is constant change to adapt to that person's needs without giving up who you are, your own integrity.

So we allow each other to be ourselves.

And I have my academic path.

She doesn't have an academic path, but we connect.

There are all these overlaps and we try to adapt to each other constantly.

That's our sacrificial way of being faithful.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's a message you leave for future you?

Do not be too quick to take on too many things again.

You're going to be written for about two years and you've exempted yourself from speaking engagement.

You're going to feel you want to go get out there again, but if you take on too many, you'll never finish the writing project.

So do not accept any engagement, any assignment immediately.

Wait two weeks.

Pray about it.

Talk with your wife because she will give you wisdom on this.

Thank you very much for being here.

Pleasure.

I cherish you.

Thank you for being on What Is Inspired.