Chance encounters that later appear the work of the Holy Spirit leave me filled with wonder and gratitude. Take for instance a chance encounter at the Center for Theological Inquiry in 2000. My dear friend of blessed memory, Donald Juel, was taking a leave of absence from his teaching New Testament at Princeton, to work on his continuing project of messianic exegesis, the origins of messianic expectations in the various forms of Palestinian Jewish religion before the life and work of Jesus, our Lord and how they help us understand the New Testament record. He and I were working on a ten year project on the Bible and Theological Education funded by the Lilly Endowment through CTI. I was visiting him for our continuing work and he introduced me to Coenie Burger, a member of the faculty at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Donald, in his usual unassuming but gleeful way suggested Coenie and I might have some things in common. So, while Donald did some other work on our project, Coenie and I sat in Don's office and talked.