Faculty and Administration

Francis joined the faculty at McMaster Divinity College in 2016 after teaching Biblical Greek at MDC since 2014. Francis has a keen interest in the language and texts of the New Testament. His research focuses on the verbal system of Hellenistic Greek and in particular how lexical semantics is related to Greek verbal aspect. He serves as an associate editor for Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics. Francis is also interested in the synoptic gospels and the historical development of eschatological thoughts in the early church. Recently he has also developed a strong interest in disability studies and the Bible.

Practical Ministry Experience
Originally from Hong Kong, Francis spent more than half of his adult life in Ontario including the past 15 years in Hamilton. He has taught previously at the Alliance Bible Seminary Centre of Canada, ministering to the Chinese Christian Communities in the Greater Toronto Area and Vancouver. Francis and his wife Irene and their two kids belong to a small and lively Anglican church community in Waterdown, where they are heavily involved in their climate justice projects and disability ministries.

Research Interests
Disability in the Bible
The Gospel of Mark
The Synoptic Problem
New Testament Eschatology
Hellenistic Greek Language, Linguistics, and Exegesis
New Testament Lexicography

Current Projects
Francis is currently involved in a few co-authoring projects, including a handbook on the epistle of Philippians and a book on Pauline eschatology. He is working on a textbook on New Testament eschatology with Dr. Stanley E. Porter, which offers detailed exegesis of all the major eschatological passages in the New Testament.

Francis is heavily involved in the OpenText.org 2.0 project, developing an interactive web interface and a revised annotation scheme for a Koine Greek corpus. Similar projects in the works include an article on the semantic feature of the so-called Greek Achievement verbs, an article on the interpretation of Mark 13, and an article on the OpenText.org project. He is also working on a monograph on disability in the Bible.

Lectures and Conference Papers
(to be co-presented with Jonathan Watt) “Familiar Story in Unfamiliar Words: William Dean’s Chinese Study Bible and Five Generations of Chinese Australian Immigrants.” The conference “Translation, Literature, and Publishing in Chinese Christianities” Conference, Manchester, UK, January 2022.

“Philip Remembered: A Portrayal of a Disciple with Asperger’s Syndrome.” Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting (Other Voices of Interpretation), San Diego, CA, 21 November, 2019.

(co-presented with Christopher D. Land and Ryder A. Wishart) “OpenText 2.0: A Stratified Annotation for Multi-Layer Searching.” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Global Education and Research Technology), San Diego, CA, 23 November, 2019.

(co-presented with Christopher D. Land) “Open Tools for Open Annotation: OpenText.org Resources for Analyzing and Teaching Greek.” Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting (New Testament Greek), Denver, CO, 14 November, 2018.

(co-presented with Stanley E. Porter) “Beware of Philippians 3:2: Reconsidering a Supposed Imperative.” Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting (Pauline Studies), Denver, CO, 15 November, 2018.

(co-presented with Christopher D. Land) “Open Tools for Open Linguistic Data: Implement Web-Based Annotation and Display Tools for OpenText.org.” Bingham Colloquium, McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, 15 June, 2018.

(co-presented with Christopher D. Land) “Exploring Web-Based Methods for Syntactic Annotation.” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Global Education and Research Technology), Boston, MA, 18 November, 2017.

“‘And Each Reader Interpreted Them as Best One Could’: A Reading of Papias’s Description of the Origin of Mark and Matthew.” Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting (New Testament Canon, Textual Criticism, and Apocryphal Literature Session), Providence, RI, 15 November, 2017.

“A Laughing Matter? A Consideration of Parodic Apocalyptic Films in the Twenty-First Century.” Bingham Colloquium, McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, 26 May, 2017.

(co-presented with Christopher D. Land) “The Past, Present, and Future of the OpenText.org Greek Annotation Greek Corpus.” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Global Education and Research Technology), San Antonio, TX, 19 November, 2016.

“Is the Delayed Parousia a Modern Invention? The Development of Eschatology in the Early Church.” Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting (Pauline Theology Session), San Antonio, TX, 16 November, 2016.

(co-presented with Christopher D. Land) “The Past, Present, and Future of the OpenText.org Greek Annotation Greek Corpus.” Bingham Colloquium, McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton Ontario, 17 June, 2016.

“‘Even the Son Does Not Know’: Mark 13:32 as Hermeneutical Key to the Markan Olivet Discourse.” Evangelical Theological Society Annual Meeting (Mark Session), Atlanta, GA, November 2015.

“When Did the Good News Become the Gospel?” Bingham Colloquium, McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, 5 June, 2015.

“From Dissertation to Publication.” McMaster Divinity College Colloquy on Dissertation and Faculty Development, Hamilton, Ontario, 6 Feb, 2015.

“Two Kinds of Movement? An Evaluation of Recent Proposals Concerning the Classification of Movement Verbs.” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Biblical Lexicography), San Diego, CA, November 2014.

“Perfectivity and Telicity in Koine Greek: Towards a Better Understanding of the Compositional Process of Greek Aktionsart.” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics), Baltimore, MD, November 2013.

“Lexis, Aspect and Aktionsart: Towards an Empirical Approach using a Representative Corpus Sample.” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics), Chicago, IL, November 2012.

“Aspect and Aktionsart Once Again: Towards a Distinction between Properties of Verb and Verb Phrase.” Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics), San Francisco, CA, November 2011.

Publications:
Authored Books
Revisiting Aspect and Aktionsart: A Corpus Approach to Koine Greek Event Typology. Linguistic Biblical Studies 14. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

Pauline Eschatology, co-author with Stanley E. Porter (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, forthcoming). Under contract.

Edited Volume
Linguistics and the Bible: Retrospects and Prospects, co-edited with Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Land (New Testament Studies Series), Hamilton, ON: MDC Press, 2019.

The Letter to the Romans: Exegesis and Application, co-edited with Stanley E. Porter (New Testament Studies Series), Hamilton, ON: MDC Press, 2016.

Articles and Book Chapters
“When Did the Good News Become the Gospel? A Corpus and Diachronic Study of Εὐαγγέλιον.” In Is the Gospel Good News?, edited by Stanley E. Porter and Hughson T. Ong, 41–53. Hamilton, ON: MDC Press, 2018.

(co-authored with Christopher D. Land) “The Past, Present, and Future of the OpenText.org Annotated Greek Corpus.” In The Language and Literature of the New Testament: Essays in Honour of Stanley E. Porter’s 60th Birthday. Edited by Lois K. Fuller Dow, Craig A. Evans, and Andrew W. Pitts. Biblical Interpretation 150. (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 69-105.

“Why We Need an Annotated Representative Corpus of Hellenistic Greek: The Compositionality of Greek Aktionsart for Movement Verbs as an Example,” in In Mari via Tua: Philological Studies in Honour of Antonio Piñero. Edited by Israel M. Gallarte and Jesús Peláez. (Córdoba: Editions el Almendro, 2016), 157-82.

“Aspect and Aktionsart Once Again,” in Stanley E. Porter, Gregory P. Fewster and Christopher D. Land, eds., Modeling Biblical Languages: Papers from the McMaster Divinity College Linguistics Circle, LBS 13. (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 48-72.

“Towards a Charismatic Theology of Luke: Some Methodological Considerations,” in Herrick P.T. Liu, ed., The Spirit and the Church: A Dialog between the Evangelicals and the Pentecostals, (HK: Alliance Bible Seminary Press, 2014). (In Chinese)

“Aktionsart and Epiphenomena: A Systemic Functional Perspective on Process Typology,” in Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta, Israel Muñoz Gallarte, eds., Greeks, Jews, and Christians: Historical, Religious and Philological Studies in Honor of Jesús Peláez del Rosal, (Córdoba, Spain: Ediciones el almendro, 2013), 449-474.

“Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament.” Filologia Neotestamentaria 23 (2010): 129-59.