Until recently (writes N.T. Wright in Jesus and the Victory of God), it was generally assumed that ‘repentance’ was a major theme in the teaching of Jesus, and that this meant more or less the negative side of personal conversion. His message was one of divine grace, in contrast to the prevailing legalism of Judaism. It is now ‘widely recognised’, says Wright, that this involved a ‘complete caricature’, both of Judaism and of the teaching of Jesus. …
‘Let no one ever again affirm that conservative evangelicals have no regard for scholarship.’
It was with that statement that Bishop Stephen Neill began his review of a 1976 book entitled ‘History, Criticism and Faith’. This book was a collection of four essays by F.F. Bruce, R.T. France, Colin Brown, and G. Wenham. In it, they discuss ‘Myth and History’ (Bruce), ‘the Authenticity of the Sayings of Jesus’ (France), ‘History and the Believer’ (Brown), and ‘History and the Old Testament’ (Wenham).…
Briefly, we may say that healing miracles
According to N.T. Wright (Jesus and the Victory of God) the healing miracles of Jesus went further than the relief of physical suffering, or even social acceptance. …
‘I became convinced many years ago, and time and exegesis have confirmed this again and again, that Paul always uses this phrase to denote, not the status which God’s people have from him or in his presence, but the righteousness of God himself. This is not to say that there is no such thing as a righteous status held by believers. There is. It is to deny that this is the referent of Paul’s phrase dikaiosune theou.main…
This is a summary of a summary. Based on Stephen Kuhrt’s helpful outline, here are the main themes and emphases in Wright’s thinking.
History
Wright is a historian, and he is very keen to place the story of the Bible in general, and the story of Jesus in particular, in historical context. He has a high level of confidence that the events recorded in the Gospels ‘really happened’. He emphasises the importance of understanding Jesus (and Paul and others) in the light of their Jewish backgrounds. …
Recent re-thinking about the doctrine of justification throws up a related question about the final judgment:-
Are we warranted to say that we are justified by faith, but are judged by works? The very idea seems to undermine the grace of God and to take away with one hand what has so freely been given with the other.
…‘Here [in Rom 2:1-16] is the first statement about justification in Romans, and lo and behold it affirms justification according to works!
Chris Tilling has a high regard for the writings of Tom Wright. It is of interest, therefore, that he thinks that many who attempt to reflect Wright’s teaching in their preaching end up saying either of two things:-
1. “You thought this text means this…but you are wrong! It is not about going to heaven when you die. Understood in terms of exile and restoration, it means…” Tilling remarks that this iconoclastic habit has a tendency to undermine hearers’ confidence in Scripture. …
My attention has been drawn to this recent talk, followed by a Q and A session, by Stephen Kuhrt about his book ‘Tom Wright for Everyone’.
Stephen Kuhrt’s talk on ‘Tom Wright for Everyone’
Stephen is vicar of Christ Church, New Malden. He is clearly an avid fan of Tom Wright and, as the subtitle of his book indicates, he is interested in ‘putting the theology of N.T. Wright into practice in the local church.’
Since I’m reasonably well acquainted with Wright’s more popular writings (but less so the big scholarly tomes), there wasn’t much in Stephen’s talk that was new to me. …
‘For seven years,’ (writes Tom Wright) ‘I was College Chaplain at Worcester College, Oxford. Each year I used to see the first year undergraduates individually for a few minutes, to welcome them to the college and make a first acquaintance. Most were happy to meet me; but many commented, often with slight embarrassment, “You won’t be seeing much of me; you see, I don’t believe in god.”
‘I developed a stock response: “Oh, that’s interesting; which god is it you don’t believe in?”…
Money, sex and power, writes Richard Foster, are inseparably intertwined:-
…Money manifests itself as power. Sex is used to acquire both money and power. And power is often called ‘the best aphrodisiac’. We could discuss at length the interlacing connections. There is, for example, an important relationship between sex and poverty: sex is the poor man’s holiday and the poor woman’s disaster. Note also the connection between power and wealth: power is frequently used to manipulate wealth, and wealth is used just as frequently to buy power.
