All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. 15 You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “ Abba, Father. ” 16 The same Spirit agrees with our spirit, that we are God’s children. 17 But if we are children, we are also heirs. We are God’s heirs and fellow heirs with Christ, if we really suffer with him so that we can also be glorified with him.
The editors of this book contend that one of the world's best-known and most influential bodies of literature is one of the least understood. This is due both to the proliferation of modern hermeneutical approaches and to the lack of understanding of the historical backgrounds of the New Testament. In their sequel to their earlier work, New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Black and Dockery present essays on current issues and methods with the purpose of enhancing New Testament interpretation, teaching, and preaching, and providing a useful means of learning what the New Testament is all about.