Gift Mtukwa, Ph.D. (NTC)
'An African Communal Reading of Paul's work exhortations in the Thessalonian Correspondence’ (NTC), 2020. Published as Work and Community in the Thessalonian Correspondence: An African Communal Reading of Paul’s Work Exhortations (Langham Monographs, 2021).
Gift Mtukwa is an ordained minister with the Church of the Nazarene and a Senior Lecturer and the chair of the department and lecturer in the School of Religion and Christian Ministry at Africa Nazarene University, where he teaches New Testament Greek, Christian Ethics, and Pauline studies.
He holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from the University of Manchester through Nazarene Theological College. His research topic was entitled, 'An African Communal Reading of Paul's Work Exhortations in the Thessalonian Correspondence.' He looked at ways in which work and community intersect in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians using African Biblical Hermeneutics. The research used the Dead Sea Scrolls, Greco-Roman Associations and Philosophical schools as background for understanding Paul's work exhortations. The African worldview was used to set the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between work and community. The research found that the nexus between work and community is stronger than earlier thought. The research concluded that work is integral to community formation and that Paul's exhortations were aimed at community formation.
Publications
Monographs
Work and Community in the Thessalonian Correspondence: An African Communal Reading of Work Exhortations. Langham Publishing: Carlisle, UK: 2021.
Books
God in His Place: Paul’s Teaching of Non-Violence in Romans 12:17-21 in Saarbrucken: Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, 2016
Journal Articles
“Ministering in a Pandemic: Learning from the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians” Didache: Faithful Teaching 20:1 (Summer 2020) ISSN: 15360156 (web version) – http://didache.nazarene.org, 2020.
“Paul’s Cruciform Mission in Thessalonica: The Shape of Incarnational Ministry” in Didache: Faithful Teaching 17:2 (Winter 2018) ISSN: 15360156 (web version) – http://didache.nazarene.org / Presented at the Global Theology Conference in Leesburg, Florida, USA
“A Reconsideration of Self Support in Light of Paul’s Collections” Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology Vol 33:2 (2014) ISBN 1026-2946/Presented at Africa Society of Evangelical Theology Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya (March 2014)
“The People of God and Kingdom Political Ethics in Romans 13:1-7” in Didache: Faithful Teaching14:1 (Summer 2014) ISSN: 15360156 (web version) – http://didache.nazarene.org
“Ancestral Cult and the Church in Africa” in Africa Journal of Wesleyan Theology Vol 1(2014).
“Can Faith be Divorced from the Public Square?” in Didache online Journal- Didache: Faithful Teaching 11:2 (Winter 2012) ISSN: 15360156 (web version) – http://didache.nazarene.org
“African Visions of Christology and the Dangers of Contextualization” with Prof Rodney Reed in Wesleyan Theological Journal (Spring 2010). Presented at the Wesleyan Theological Society Annual Meeting in March 2009.
Book Chapters
“Past, Present and Future: Paul’s View of Salvation in the Thessalonian Correspondence” Pages 111-132 in Salvation in African Christianity. Edited by Rodney L. Reed and David K. Ngaruiya, Langham Global Library: Carlisle, 2023.
“Paul’s Use of Μιμηταί and Its Relationship to His Christology” Pages 117-135 in Who Do You Say That I Am? Christology in Africa. Edited by Rodney L. Reed and David K. Ngaruiya, Langham Global Library: Carlisle, 2021.
“Holiness, Missio Dei and the Church in Africa” Pages 3-18 in African Contextual Realities. Edited by Rodney L. Reed, Langham Global Library: Carlisle, 2018.
‘Following Jesus’s Way of Holiness: Holiness and Priesthood in Hebrews’ in Following Jesus: Prophet, Priest and King. Edited by Timothy R. Gaines and Kara Lyons—Purdue, Beacon Hill Press: Kansas City, 2018.
‘What Makes Ethics Christian’ in Essential Beliefs: A Wesleyan Primer Edited by Mark Maddix and Diane Leclerc Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2016.
‘African Holiness: Translating Holiness into Authentically African Language and Living Ancestral Cult and the Church in Africa’ in Renovating Holiness. Edited by Josh Broward and Tom J. Oord. Sacra Sage: Nampa Idaho 2015
Dictionary Articles
“Antichrist” in Global Wesleyan Encyclopaedia of Biblical Theology. Edited by Robert D. Branson, Kansas City: The Foundry Publishing, 2020.
“Repentance” in Global Wesleyan Encyclopaedia of Biblical Theology. Edited by Robert D. Branson, Kansas City: The Foundry Publishing, 2020.
‘African Theology: Recent Developments’ In New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic 2ndEdition Edited by Martin Davie, T.A Noble et al London: InterVarsity Press, 2016
“Poverty” 422-423, in Global Wesleyan Dictionary of Theology. Edited by Albert Truesdale, Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2013.
“Conscience” 121-121 in Global Wesleyan Dictionary of Theology. Edited by Albert Truesdale, Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2013.
Book Reviews
Sherman Robert. Covenant and Spirit: A Trinitarian Theology of the Church in Wesleyan Theological Journal Vol 52 Number 1 Spring 2017