Revd Prof Steve Walton, BSc, MA, PhD

Senior Research Fellow in New Testament

Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised sixteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and at the interfaces of New Testament and theology, practical theology, and Islamics. He has also examined forty doctoral theses covering a breadth of topics, including: Luke and Acts, the Gospels, Paul, Hebrews, the role of Bishops in the UK House of Lords, church growth, the interface of Islamics and New Testament studies, and hermeneutics.

His major current research project is the Word Biblical Commentary on Acts. His most recent book is Reading Acts Theologically. He has wide interests outside Acts, including the synoptic Gospels (especially Mark and Luke), New Testament theology, narrative approaches to the New Testament, the appropriation of the Old Testament in the New Testament, Greek language and linguistics, New Testament textual criticism, and Paul (especially, but not exclusively, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Galatians), and the interfaces between New Testament and other theological disciplines. He blogs about New Testament Studies at Acts and More (http://stevewalton.info)

Steve has served as Secretary of the British New Testament Society, and on the steering committees of the Society of Biblical Literature Book of Acts and Biblical Lexicography sections. He also served on the Editorial Board of the Library of New Testament Studies series (Bloomsbury T & T Clark). He is a member of the SNTS (the premier international New Testament society), the Center of Theological Inquiry (Princeton, NJ), the Society of Biblical Literature, the Tyndale Fellowship for Biblical and Theological Research, the Institute for Biblical Research, and is a senior research fellow of the Kirby Laing Centre.

Steve has served on church staff, in student ministry, advised people on God’s call with the Church Pastoral Aid Society, was a househusband, a bishop’s chaplain, and has taught at Bedford College, St John’s College, Nottingham, London School of Theology, and St Mary’s University, Twickenham—the latter two as Professor. He is married to Ali, who is associate rector of Emmanual Church, Loughborough, and they live with their Border Terrier, Flora. Steve is a retired international volleyball referee and trainer of other referees, and was an Olympic torchbearer in 2012.

Select publications

(View a full CV of Prof Walton’s work here)

Authored books

Acts 1–9:42 (Word Biblical Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, forthcoming 2024).
Reading Acts Theologically (Library of NT Studies 661; London: T. & T. Clark, 2022).

[with David Wenham] Exploring the New Testament, vol. 1: The Gospels and Acts (London: SPCK/Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2001; second edition, 2011; third edition 2021).

Leadership and Lifestyle: The Portrait of Paul in the Miletus Speech and 1 Thessalonians (SNTS Monograph Series 108; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

Edited books

Le corpus Lucanian (Luc-Actes) et lhistorigraphie ancienne: quels rapports?, edited by Simon Butticaz, Luc Devilliers, James M. Morgan and Steve Walton (Théologie biblique; Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2019).

Poverty in the Early Church and Today–A Conversation with Hannah Swithinbank of Tearfund (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019). This book is freely available online: https://tinyurl.com/poverty-book.

The Urban World and the First Christians, edited by Steve Walton, Paul R. Trebilco and David W. J. Gill (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2017).

Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics, edited by Eric D Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner and Steve Walton (Library of NT Studies 559; London: Bloomsbury T. & T. Clark, 2016).

Reading Acts Today, edited by Steve Walton, Thomas E. Phillips, Lloyd K. Pietersen and F. Scott Spencer (Library of NT Studies 427; London: T. & T. Clark, 2011).

Recent contributions to books

‘1 and 2 Thessalonians’ in The Greek New Testament Study Bible, ed. Constantine Campbell, Stephen B. Rockwell and Bradley M. Trout (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, forthcoming 2024).
‘Paul in Acts’ in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, 2nd ed., ed. Scot McKnight, Lynn H. Cohick and Nijay K. Gupta (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2023) 779-91.
‘Exodus in Luke-Acts’ (with Brian Tabb) in Exodus in the New Testament, ed. Seth Ehorn (Library of NT Studies 663; London: Bloomsbury T. & T. Clark, 2022) 61-87.
‘The End—What and When? Eschatology in Luke-Acts’ in Eschatology in Antiquity, ed. Hilary F. Marlow, Helen Van Noorden and Karla Pollman (Oxford: Routledge, 2020).
‘Portraits of Jesus and Paul through the Lukan Lens’ in Who Created Christianity? Fresh Approaches the the Relationship between Paul and Jesus, ed. Craig A. Evans and Aaron W. White, Festschrift for David Wenham (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Academic, 2020) 361-78.
‘Why Silence? Reflections Paul and Jesus Silencing Demonised People in Luke-Acts’ in Healing and Exorcism in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity (WUNT II; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019).

‘Acts as Biblical History?’ in Le corpus Lucanien (Luc-Actes) et l’historographie ancienne: quels rapports?, ed. Simon Butticaz, Luc Devilliers, James M. Morgan and Steve Walton (Théologie biblique; Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2019) 51-68.

‘Why Silence? Reflections on Paul and Jesus Silencing Demonised People in Luke-Acts’ in Healing and Exorcism in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity (Mohr Siebeck, 2019), edited by Mikael Tellbe and Tommy Wasserman.

‘Deciding about Deciding’ in Engaging Ethically in a Strange New World, edited by Michael Brautigam and Gillian Asquith (Australian College of Theology Monograph Series, Wipf & Stock, 2019) 27-49.

Turning Anthropology Right Side Up: Seeing Human Life and Existence Lukewise’ in Anthropology and New Testament Theology, edited by Jason S. Maston and Benjamin E. Reynolds (Library of NT Studies 529; London: Bloomsbury T. & T. Clark, 2018) 99-119.

Identity and Christology: The Ascended Jesus in the Book of Acts’ in The Earliest Perceptions of Jesus in Context: Essays in Honour of John Nolland, edited by Aaron White, David Wenham and Craig Evans (Library of NT Studies 566; London: Bloomsbury T. & T. Clark, forthcoming 2018) 130-48.

Recent journal articles

‘Thinking it Through: Researching and Writing a Conference Paper’, ReflectED: St Mary’s Journal of Education 7 (2016): 3–5.

‘What are the Gospels? Richard Burridge’s Impact on Scholarly Understanding of the Genre of the Gospels’, Currents in Biblical Research 14 (2015): 81–93.

‘Calling the Church Names: Learning about Christian Identity from Acts’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 41 (2014): 223–41.

‘What is Progress in New Testament Studies?’, Expository Times 124 (2013): 209–26 [French translation: ‘Qu’entend-on par progrès dans l’étude du Nouveau Testament?’, Hokhma 108 (2015): 3–31].

Recent transfer of knowledge to a wider audience

Bible reading notes on Philippians in Daily Bread (Scripture Union), forthcoming Jul-Sep 2024.
‘How to Read the Book of Acts’ in Encounter with God (Scripture Union), Jul-Sep 2023.
Bible reading notes on Ruth in Guidelines (Bible Reading Fellowship), May-Aug 2023.
‘Why was “Saul” Changed to “Paul”?’ on the Logos Word for Word blog, https://www.logos.com/grow/hall-saul-to-paul/, Apr 2023.
‘Reading Galatians: Paul’s Most Urgent Letter’ at St John the Evangelist’s Church, Waterbeach, February 2022, and for the North Stowe deanery clergy and lay ministers, March 2022.
Bible reading notes on 2 Thessalonians in Guidelines (Bible Reading Fellowship), Sep-Dec 2022.
Bible reading notes on 1 Thessalonians in Guidelines (Bible Reading Fellowship), May-Aug 2022.
Bible reading notes on Galatians in Guidelines (Bible Reading Fellowship), Jan-Apr 2022.
Bible reading notes on 1 Corinthians 9–16 (with Ali Walton) in Daily Bread (Scripture Union), Sep-Dec 2021.
‘How (Not) to Pray: Luke 18:10-14)’ in The BRF Book of 365 Bible Reflections (Abingdon: BRF, 2021) 105.

Latest blog posts

New Chair of Trustees and Other Trustees

Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised sixteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and […]

Howard takes on new role as Lead Tutor for Academic Inclusion

Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised sixteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and […]

Trinity Newsletter Autumn 2023

Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised sixteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and […]

Scholarships available!

Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Senior Research Fellow in New Testament Revd Prof Steve Walton’s passion is to help others engage with the New Testament for themselves. He acts as a research supervisor for Trinity, and has supervised sixteen PhD students to successful completion across a wide range of areas in New Testament, and […]