1.    Article

Articles for the Teleioteti Journal of Christian ministry are medium-length literary products that clearly and persuasively contribute to Christian thought and practice. As Christ’s purpose on earth is to build his church, articles contribute to Christian thought and practice by building the church, equipping ministers and others to understand God and his world and how to live faithfully within it. They ought to be firmly rooted in the Scriptures as they have been read and proclaimed in Christian churches for the last 2000 years.

An article ought to have a clear structure, judiciously employing heading to lead the reader through the argument. For new writers, it is best to employ the model of a thesis statement followed by an argument proving that statement (a deductive paper). Other models of persuasive writing will be accepted for publication, but they often take a particular level of skill pull-off. A deductive paper ought to have a clear map or statement of its outline, a sentence or two explaining how the paper will prove its thesis, often corresponding to the major headings of the paper.

All articles should be accompanied by an abstract of 100-150 words. An abstract should provide the thesis or investigative question and its resolution, along with an overview of the method of argument and the contribution the article seeks to make.

The author should provide 3 to 7 keywords to facilitate indexing and discovery of the article.

2.  Book Review

Book reviews introduce the reader to a new book or a book that is likely to be unknown, either commending it or diagnosing serious concerns in such a way that honours the author of the work and accurately presents its contents.

A short review is 500 – 1000 words. Occasionally, it may be appropriate to engage at length with the argument of a book, for which a long review is appropriate. A long review is 1000-5000 words and is expected to make a contribution, whether that is diagnosing a serious concern with a prominent book or developing an idea that will make a genuine contribution to Christian ministry in dialogue with a particular book.

3. Document Formatting

A. Digital

a. Article

An article should be prepared with size 12, Lato font for the body, double-spaced. Paragraphs should be left aligned; the first paragraph is not indented, but the following paragraphs should be indented 1.27 cm (1 inch).

An article may employ three levels of headings. Headings should be in Poppins font. The first level of headings should be centred, preceded by an Arabic numeral (but not formatted as a list), bold, and size 18. The second level of headings should be centred, preceded by an uppercase Latin letter, bold, and size 14. The third level of headings should be left aligned, preceded by a lowercase Latin letter, bold, and size 12. All headings should have 12 pts space before and after the heading.

For spelling conventions, please use either Australian (see the Macquarie Dictionary) or US spelling consistently.

Place the full text of a footnote in the body text within double brackets where the footnote is to be placed. Include final punctuation but exclude numbering. The footnote should be formatted the same as the body of the article. E.g. ( (This would be a footnote, if there were no space between the brackets.) ). This is how it will appear when printed.¹

b. Book Review

Long reviews should follow the formatting above. For short reviews, they should be prepared with size 12, Lato font for the body, and single-spaced. Paragraphs should be left aligned; the first paragraph is not indented, but the following paragraphs should be indented 1.27 cm (1 inch). Please use only one level of headings for a short review. Headings should be in Poppins font, centred, preceded by an Arabic numeral (but not formatted as a list), bold, and size 18. There should be 12 pts space before and after the heading.

Place the full text of a footnote in the body text within double brackets where the footnote is to be placed. Include final punctuation but exclude numbering. e.g. ( (This would be a footnote, if there were no space between the brackets.) ). This is how it will appear when printed.¹

B. Print

a.     Page Setup

Margins
Top 1.93 cm
Bottom 1.93 cm
Inside 1.93 cm
Outside 1.52 cm
Gutter 0.36 cm
Gutter position: Left
Mirror Margins

Paper Size: 15.24 cm, 22.86 cm

Headers and Footers
From edge
Header 0.89 cm
Footer 0.89 cm

Page Alignment: Top

b. Article

An article should be prepared with size 12, Garamond font for the body, 1.15 spaced. Paragraphs should be justified; the first paragraph is not indented, but the following paragraphs should be indented 1.27 cm (1 inch).

An article may employ three levels of headings. Headings should be in Times New Roman font. The first level of headings should be centred, preceded by an Arabic numeral (but not formatted as a list), underlined, and size 18. The second level of headings should be centred, preceded by an uppercase Latin letter, bold, and size 14. The third level of headings should be left aligned, preceded by a lowercase Latin letter, bold, and size 12. The first level of headings should have 12 pts spacing before and after. The following levels of headings should have 6 pts spacing before and after.

For spelling conventions, please use either Australian (see the Macquarie Dictionary) or US spelling consistently.

c. Book Review

Long reviews should follow the formatting above. Short reviews should be prepared with size 12, Garamond font for the body, and single-spaced. Paragraphs should be left aligned; the first paragraph is not indented, but the following paragraphs should be indented 1.27 cm (1 inch). Please use only one level of headings for a short review. Headings should be in Times New Roman font, centred, preceded by an Arabic numeral (but not formatted as a list), underline, and size 18.

4.Style

A. Quotations in the Biblical Language:

If a sentence or more is used, provide a translation only. If a single word is provided, e.g. חֶסֶד, provide a transliteration and gloss in brackets (ḥesed, loving-kindness). If the word is given in a footnote, the transliteration and gloss may be provided in the footnote text, at the author’s discretion.

Formatting:

Main text: 12, Times New Roman.

Footnotes, 11 Times New Roman, bold.

Transliterations for Hebrew (Simplified); if it is necessary to distinguish short from long vowels, employ a macron to indicate a long vowel; if it is necessary to distinguish BGDKPT letters, use the below macron.

B. Quotations in other languages

All quotations in other languages should be accompanied by a translation and should use the closest sans-serif font which is open source or free for commercial use. Transliterations are not necessary.

C. Emphasis

Emphasis is to be indicated with the use of italics.

Italics shall also be employed to mark of uses of non-English languages that employ the Latin alphabet (e.g. porta).

D. Numbers

For numbers twelve or less in the body of the text, they are to be written out in full. Numbers greater than twelve should be written with Arabic numerals. Numbers indicating locations in literature (pages, verses, chapters, etc.) shall also be written with Arabic numerals—unless roman numerals are employed in a source cited.

Footnotes should employ Arabic numerals unless doing so would cause confusion.

E. Regarding slang and contractions:

Unless found within the quoted material, contractions and slang shall be avoided.

F. Abbreviations

a. For the New and Old Testament.

The first use of each should be written in full. Afterwards, abbreviate unless doing so would be awkward—such as in the case of a possessive (New Testament’s instead of NT’s).

b. Books of the Bible

The names of Biblical books shall be written out in full in the body of the text, but abbreviated in parenthetical citations and in footnotes, where appropriate.

            Abbreviations:                                  

c. Other Abbreviations

It is common to abbreviate journal titles and primary sources. If an abbreviation for a resource is not found in the SBL Handbook of Style, use the full name the first use and indicate the abbreviation that will be used in the following instances: e.g. The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (hereafter, CChal).

5. Citations

For citations please follow the SBL Handbook of Style (2^nd Edition), supplemented by The Chicago Manual of Style (17^th Ed.). Use a full citation in the first instance; the following instances should use the short citation format.

In the first instance:

Long form (Book): J. Alexander Rutherford, The Trinity and the Bible: How All Scripture Testifies to One God in Three Persons (Campbell River: Teleioteti, 2022), 1.

In subsequent instances:

Short form (Book): Rutherford, The Trinity, 1.

For a book review, give the page from the book being reviewed in brackets (e.g. 30). It may benefit the author to employ a referencing app such as Zotero or RefWorks. E.g.

Book (Authored): Hagit Amirav, Authority and Performance: Sociological Perspectives on the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), Hypomnemata  199 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015)

Book (Edited): Paul Vincent Spade, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ockham, Cambridge Companions to Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999)

Chapter in a Book:  Howard Robinson, “Idealism and Perception: Why Berkeleyan Idealism Is Not as Counterintuitive as It Seems,” in Idealism and Christian Philosophy, ed. Steven B. Cowan and James S. Spiegel, Idealism and Christianity 2 (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 71–89.

Dictionary Article: John M. Frame, “Scientia Media,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology

Dissertation/Thesis: Kamina Wust, “The Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible: Inner-Biblical Allusions Embodied by Solomon and the Daughters of Jerusalem” (Moore Theological College, Ph.D., 2022)

Journal Article: T. W. Bartel, “Why the Philosophical Problems of Chalcedonian Christology Have Not Gone Away,” The Heythrop Journal 36.2 (1995)

Online Article: David Starling, “The Same Mind,” TGC Australia, 16 April 2015, https://au.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-same-mind/.

For primary sources, give the full citation in the first instance followed by in-text references in the following uses: It is Cyril’s second letter to Nestorius which is referenced in the Definition of Chalcedon.² Cyril of Alexandria’s second letter to Nestorius attempts to show that Nicene Creed itself refutes Nestorius’s doctrine (Cyril, Second Letter, §2).

6. Copyright information

The Teleioteti Journal for Christian Ministry (TJfCM) seeks to preserve the distinctive style of an author’s work, but it reserves the right to make non-substantive changes deemed necessary to align the article with the Journal’s purpose. These changes will usually be stylistic; these are typically changes to increase intelligibility or to bring the article into conformity with TJfCM’s style guidelines.
By submitting an article, the author agrees that the copyright for the article is transferred to TJfCM if and when the article is accepted for publication. The author also agrees not to submit the manuscript for publication elsewhere in any form, in English or any other language, without prior written consent of TJfCM.
A PDF of published articles will be supplied to the author for personal use. The author may make the unmodified PDF available online at their discretion.

1. This is what happens if there is no space between the brackets. [↩] [↩]
2. Cyril of Alexandria, “Second Letter to Nestorius,” in Christ: Through the Nestorian Controversy, ed. Mark DelCogliano, trans. Matthew R. Crawford, The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings 3 (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 564–69. [↩]