He was born in Leeds, England, and studied at the University of Oxford: Corpus Christi College, and at the University of Cambridge: Wesley House. He was ordained to the ministry by the Methodist Church and served as pastor in several churches in England, in addition to being a Methodist chaplain at the University of Manchester. In 1965 he became part of the faculty of the Candler School of Theology, Emory University, which he retired in 1994, and of which he is professor emeritus of the New Testament. In addition to this book he is the author of the work Mysterious Apocalypse, and was in charge of the edition A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul in The Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke.