Walter L. Liefeld, PhD
Walter L. Liefeld is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He joined the Trinity faculty in 1963 and retired in 1994.
Dr. Liefeld has also served as pastor and interim pastor of a several churches in New York and Illinois over the years. Most recently he was Senior Pastor of Christ Church, Lake Forest, Illinois. He has also served in overseas ministry in Western and Eastern Europe, Southest Asia, and South America. Dr. Liefeld taught at Shelton College and spent three years as a staff member with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He has been a visiting professor at Tyndale Theological Seminary in the Netherlands, where he also served as Interim President in 2000-2002.
Dr. Liefeld studied at New York University, received the Bachelor of Theology in Bible from Shelton College (then National Bible Institute), the Master of Arts in Greek and Latin from Columbia University, and the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Hellenistic Religions from Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. He has done post-doctoral research at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
Dr. Liefeld's areas of expertise include backgrounds of the New Testament, expository preaching, ministry and authority in the church, women in the church, and the books of Luke, Acts, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Evangelical Theological Society, the Chicago Society of Biblical Research, and the Institute for Biblical Research.
Dr. Liefeld is retired from the Board of Trustees of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and from the Committee on Bible Translation of the International Bible Society (New International Version committee). He was a contributor to the NIV Study Bible. Among his other published works are Daughters of the Church, coauthored with Ruth Tucker (Zondervan, 1987), New Testament Exposition (Zondervan, 1984), Interpreting the Book of Acts (Baker, 1995), and commentaries on Luke, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles. Dr. Liefeld has written articles and essays that have appeared in numerous other publications and has just completed a manuscript on the subject of God’s call to missions and ministry.
Dr. Liefeld now resides in Lindenhurst, Illinois, with his wife, Olive. They have three grown children and seven grandchildren. In their retirement the Liefelds enjoy music and outdoor sports, and both are still active in neighborhood Bible teaching and other ministries.