If you ask Dr. Joseph “Joey” Dodson, Denver Seminary’s Dr. Craig L. Blomberg Endowed Chair of New Testament, what drew him to concentrate on the New Testament, he instantly answers, “Jesus.”  

“All of the New Testament is about Him,” he says. He points out that the Old Testament is about Jesus, too, and that he loves the entire Bible for this reason. “The New Testament explains, summarizes, alludes to, and echoes the Old Testament,” he says. “I can study Jesus and get David, Moses, and Isaiah. The full meaning of the Hebrew Bible is found in the story of Jesus.” 

Joey’s passion for the New Testament is evident in his work, which has culminated in his appointment as the Blomberg endowed chair in 2022, two years after he joined the Seminary as an associate professor of New Testament. The position is named for Dr. Craig Blomberg, who taught for thirty-five years at Denver Seminary and is considered to be “one of the most influential evangelical New Testament scholars in this generation,” according to Denver Seminary Chancellor Dr. Mark Young.  

A Love Grown from an Early Age 

Joey has loved the Bible since he was very young. Raised as a “fundamentalist”—his mother grew up in the Church of Christ, and his father was a Southern Baptist—he was taught to treasure and revere scripture. His childhood Sunday school teacher recognized Joey’s hunger for knowledge gave him homework assignments and books to read about the Bible. These included works by “people I’d never heard of,” he says, like the historian Josephus and the Jewish philosopher Philo, both of whom wrote during Jesus’s lifetime on earth. “My Sunday School teacher would tell me: ‘If you want to understand the Bible better, you need to understand books like these that were written alongside of the Bible.’”  

When he was a junior in college, Joey felt God calling him to become a professor and share his love of the Bible. “And then everything led to that,” he says.  

The Path to Denver Seminary 

After college, Joey taught for two years at a Christian high school, where “the first thing I ever taught” was a class on the First Gospel in which he used Dr. Blomberg’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew as his textbook. He then decided to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. “Most of my favorite scholars—including Dr. Blomberg—graduated from Scottish schools; it’s one of the major hubs of Bible study,” he explains.  

At Aberdeen, his Greek professor fell ill, and Joey began teaching undergraduates in his stead. “I fell in love with teaching. It helped me to double down on my calling,” he says.  

Joey undertook post-doctoral work in Germany at the University of Tübingen, and studied Greek in Cyprus. Finally, he ended up in Arkansas, teaching Biblical studies at Ouachita Baptist University. 

“I was happy there, but I had a shortlist of places I was willing to leave for. One was Denver,” he says. One of his mentors, Lynn Cohick, the former provost at Denver Seminary, happened to reach out to him about a position available as a New Testament professor. “To be with my mentor and at Denver Seminary was enough,” Joey says. “The Lord was gracious enough to make it come to fruition.” 

Why Denver Seminary? 

Joey saw something extraordinary in Denver Seminary. “What sets us apart is the charitable orthodoxy that brings us together. Many New Testament programs are one denomination, or one color, gender, socio-economic status, and so on. Here there is more diversity—Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, non-denominational, men, women, black, white, people from all over the world. The diversity in the classroom makes us unusual, stronger, and better. Exegesis is best done in community, and even more so in a diverse community.” Each denomination, gender, ethnicity, and even age group has its own perspective, he notes.   

A Focus on Paul 

In his New Testament studies, Joey has shown a particular interest in Paul. Among his recent works are Conquerors Not Captives: Reframing Romans 7 for the Christian Life, The Convict’s Gibbet and the Victor’s Car: The Triumphal Death of Marcus Atilius Regulus and the Background of Col 2:15, and Paul and the Giants of Philosophy: Reading the Apostle in Greco-Roman Context. In studying Paul, Joey has discovered that “Paul often echoes and alludes to the Old Testament in ways that I didn’t even notice before.”  

Joey considers his “life verse” to be I Corinthians 15:10: 

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.” 

This verse reminds Joey that God’s grace is “in my life all over the place as one who was an ‘accident.’ He chose me to be one of His ambassadors.” By “accident,” he means that he was born to an unwed high-school student who gave him up for adoption. For this reason, Joey also holds Romans 8, with its passages about adoption into God’s family, close to his heart. “I still carry the weight of feeling fatherless and abandoned by my mom; I’m still that boy, but my ultimate identity is ‘adopted by God.’ He will never forsake me,” Joey says. 

Joey cherishes the fact that he has been adopted into God’s diverse, vast family and eternal story. When God saves us, he notes, “we are not just saved from something but into something: the epic story that begins in Genesis. We are saved into the people of God—Adam, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah—a multi-ethic, multi-cultural people where every tongue and tribe come together from the seeds of Abraham and Adam.” 

Fostering and Adopting 

His own adoption drew Joey and his wife, Sadie—his sweetheart since the first grade—to foster and adopt children. “We have now been involved in foster and adoption ministries in various capacities now for over fifteen years,” he says. He and Sadie now have five children—four biological and one adopted—and three grandchildren. His oldest son, daughter-in-law, and their two children live in an apartment above Joey and Sadie. “We love to hear our grandsons’ footsteps every morning,” Joey laughs.  

Some of Joey’s children have followed in his footsteps. His daughter graduated from Denver Seminary last year and is now living in St. Andrews, Scotland with her family while pursuing her PhD. His oldest son graduated from Denver Seminary this year, And, to top it off, his wife is scheduled to graduate with her DMin from Denver Seminary next year.  

Beyond the Classroom 

Like many Denver Seminary faculty members, Joey also works outside the classroom at a church. He is an associate pastor at New Denver Church, a non-denominational church founded in 2009. “The Lord has called me to be a bridge between the Seminary and the Church—the academy and the local body of believers,” he explains. “I keep one foot in the academy and the other in practical ministry. Getting into Hebrew affects my ministry, and what I do in church influences what I do in the classroom. It’s a great handshake.”  

“The rubber hits the road in church,” he continues. “We can talk about the command, ‘Do not commit adultery’ in a scholarly way, but that’s not the same as meeting a man who’s crumbling at your doorstep because his wife has been unfaithful. Knowledge puffs up; ministry is humbling.” 

What He Brings to the Classroom 

In addition to his practical experience and expertise in the New Testament, Joey brings to the classroom his “unique understanding of the Bible and its work in the world,” according to Dr. Don Payne, Denver Seminary’s academic dean.  

When asked what Dr. Payne means, Joey says these words are “a glorification of the worm.” “We all have a unique perspective!” he proclaims. He admits, though, that his experiences working as a youth pastor, fostering and adopting children, and occupying the “ivory tower” give him an “unusual perspective.” 

“There are professors who are bona fide scholars, but I often feel like a pastor dressed up as a scholar,” he says. 

What He Enjoys 

When not in the church or the classroom, Joey likes being with his family and traveling the world — “particularly places with great vegan food and spectacular mountain hikes.” Two of his favorite places are Switzerland and Peru.  

And Joey still loves teaching. When asked what he enjoys about his work at Denver Seminary, he replies, “My students! I learn so much from them, too. In fact, I just had coffee with a student who taught me a lot about Leviticus.” 

“The only thing better,” he continues, “is former students, because they become lasting friends.”