Are you a pastor or lay leader who thinks critically about how Scripture offers both a theological foundation for political life? Drawing on his soon-to-be-released book, Reimagining Biblical Politics: What Scripture Says About Public Life and Why It Matters, Dr. Michael Rhodes will walk us through the stories of Daniel and Esther. Then, in conversation with Rev. Meg Jenista, Program Director for Preaching Reformed Fellowship, we will tease out new possibilities for preaching that offers God’s people a greater capacity for wisdom in their public and political lives.

Dr. Rhodes has been a professor at Carey Baptist College in Auckland, NZ, since 2021.  He teaches undergraduate Old Testament courses, co-teaches courses in the postgraduate program, and supervises MA theses. 

Michael holds a PhD in Divinity from the University of Aberdeen/Trinity College, Bristol. Before coming to Carey, Michael spent 7 years working for Christian community development programs, first in Kenya, and then in the economically impoverished South Memphis community where his family lives. In addition to this extensive community development experience, he has also been involved in racially and economically diverse church plants since 2009, and is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Michael’s passion is to help the church hear and respond to God’s call in Scripture to become a community that embodies Jesus’s good news for the poor. As a result, he has studied and published works on economic discipleship, racial justice, and poverty in Scripture, at both the academic and popular levels. 

“I think the Old Testament is absolutely mesmerizing, and I love wrestling with it together with others. So the opportunity to join students in reading the Bible as God’s address, summoning us to an intimate relationship with him and a life of kingdom engagement in the world is just incredible.” 

Books:

• Reimagining Biblical Politics: What Scripture Says About Public Life and Why It Matters (June 2026)
• Just Discipleship: Biblical Justice in an Unjust World (2023)
• Practicing the King’s Economy: Honoring Jesus in How We Work, Spend, Save, & Give (2018)