John Mark Hicks

Below is a Spanish version of the English journal article “Searching for the Pattern” that was first published in Tέλειός/Teleios: A Journal to Promote Holistic Christian Spirituality 3, no. 1 (Winter 2023): 73-90. Translated by Wilson Silva Garcia.

In 2022, I was invited to speak at the Teacher’s Conference for the International Churches of Christ. It was joy to attend, and I shared some wonderful times with brothers and sisters from among those congregations. The essay that arose from that opportunity is entitled “Searching for the Pattern.” I am making it available here. […]

A PDF version is available here. Over a year ago Truth Magazine published an issue that reviewed several of my books, including Searching for the Pattern. In this blog I respond to some prominent concerns in these articles. Some of these are expressed in almost every article by different writers. I thank the reviewers for […]

In the Fall of 1978, I was attending Westminster Theological Seminary (seeking a sixty-six hour degree in theology) and preaching for the Northeast Philadelphia Church of Christ. I was twenty-one years old. The church asked me to give a series of radio lessons on a station that covered the Philadelphia market. They hoped it would […]

The following videos are five lecture/sermon presentations and one Q&A from the Ray Evans Seminar held at the Alameda Church of Christ in Norman, Oklahoma, on April 12-14, 2024. The presentations are based on the book Searching for the Pattern, published in 2019.

Churches of Christ are, gratefully, a people who love the Bible, and I grew up in an era when the church knew the Bible so well. At the same time, we read the Bible in a particular way that is perhaps not as faithful to the Bible as we might have hoped. In this interview, […]

Below are three videos that address the question for a pattern in the New Testament, which is typical of Churches of Christ or restoration traditions in general. If one wants more detail, several blogs and my recent book are resources. The book is Searching for the Pattern: My Journey in Interpreting the Bible. Several blogs […]

Below I summarize the point of Searching for the Pattern: My Journey in Interpreting the Bible. Growing up in Churches of Christ, I embraced and practiced a hermeneutic that sought an implicit blueprint for the work and worship of the church in Acts and the Epistles. Through a filter of generic/specific distinctions, coordinate associations, the […]

In the December 2019 issue of the Gospel Advocate, Dan Owen offered a brief response, in part, to my recent book Searching for the Pattern. I thank Dan for reading the book, and I am grateful for his article as it calls attention to an important concern about how we read the Bible. I wish […]