Tag Archives: N. T. Wright

“Etched into the pattern of our life and work”

06 Tuesday Aug 2019

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[I]f we are to be kingdom-announcers, modeling the new way of being human, we are also to be cross bearers. This is a strange and dark theme that is also our birthright as followers of Jesus. Shaping our world is never for a Christian a matter of going out arrogantly thinking we can just get on with the job, reorganizing the world according to some model that we have in mind. It is a matter of sharing and bearing the pain and puzzlement of the world so that the crucified love of God in Christ may be brought to bear healingly upon the world at exactly that point. Because Jesus bore the cross uniquely for us, we do not have to purchase forgiveness again; it’s been done. But because, as he himself said, following him involves taking up the cross, we should expect, as the New Testament tells us repeatedly, that to build on his foundation will be to find the cross etched into the pattern of our life and work over and over again.

N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, pgs. 188-89

The cross of Jesus was the place, literally and theologically, where the love of God came to bear upon this world. The meaning for us us clear: to carry the cross, to be crucified with Christ, is to bring the love of God to bear upon the world at precisely that point.

One more comment…the above paragraph gets to the heart of why this blog has the name it does: The Cruciform Pen.

2018 Gifford Lectures (Part 5)

14 Wednesday Mar 2018

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Here is my favorite quote from the previous lecture (lecture 4):

The gospels do not contain apocalyptic, in the first century sense they are apocalyptic. They are describing how the revelation, the unveiling, the visible coming of God took place; thus as far as the gospel writers were concerned…YHWH had returned to his people

As Wright explains, the theme of the return of YHWH has huge implications for understanding, among other things, Jesus’ well known journey toward Jerusalem beginning in Luke 9:51 and culminating in his death and resurrection. Luke tells the story in such a way to suggest that Jesus’ journey is the “actualization” of YHWH’s return to Jerusalem which was long-foretold by the prophets. This highlights the seriousness of Jesus’ “apocalyptic” rebuke of Jerusalem in ch. 13 and again in ch. 19, “You did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you!”

There is a lot to consider there, but I will leave it as is for now. Below is the video for the next lecture, titled “The Stone the Builders Rejected: Jesus, the Temple and the Kingdom”

As always, here is the link to the University of Aberdeen webpage for the lectures.

2018 Gifford Lectures (Part 4)

12 Monday Mar 2018

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My favorite quote from the previous lecture (lecture 3):

We ought not to speak of God incarnate until we have studied the incarnate God.

This wonderfully succinct quote is an excellent demonstration of the way Wright brings together history and theology in his larger project. It is worth sitting and pondering how the two parts of that statement fit together.

Here is the fourth lecture, “The End of the World? Eschatology and Apocalyptic in Historical Perspective”

As always, check out the blurb over at University of Aberdeen’s web page. All eight lectures are now posted there.

2018 Gifford Lectures (Part 3)

09 Friday Mar 2018

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I am really enjoying this lecture series. I hope that it eventually gets published as a book too. One thing I appreciate about N.T. Wright is his ability to see the parts in light of the whole. This applies equally to his readings of Holy Scripture, his grasp of the history of biblical scholarship, and the nexus between those two.

On a separate note, here is my favorite quote from lecture 2:

The idea of first century Jews, including Jesus and his early followers, expecting the literal and imminent end of the world is in fact a modern myth…a story invented by a community to sustain its common life and purpose. In arguing against this myth, I therefore intend to kill a fatted sacred cow. Any prodigals hoping for a feast should come home right now.

Boom.

Here is the third installment of Wright’s Gifford Lectures:

As always, check out the blurb over at University of Aberdeen’s web page. All eight lectures are now posted there.

2018 Gifford Lectures (Part 2)

08 Thursday Mar 2018

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After watching the first lecture, I have only two words: MIND BLOWN. I find it incredibly interesting, if deeply ironic, that the most recent New Testament scholar to give the Gifford Lectures before Wright was Rudolf Bultmann. Hmm.

Here is the 2nd lecture (out of 8 total):

Bes sure to read the blurb over at the University of Aberdeen.

2018 Gifford Lectures

06 Tuesday Mar 2018

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The first 6 lectures (out of 8 total)  by N.T. Wright are available to watch online (via YouTube) from the University of Aberdeen. I will post one at a time since probably not many of us have time to watch more than one lecture in a single sitting.

Here is the blurb from the University of Aberdeen:

The Gifford Lectures—held regularly at the four ancient Scottish universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews and Aberdeen—were established under the will of Adam Lord Gifford, a Senator of the College of Justice, who died in 1887.  His bequest allows the University to invite notable scholars to deliver a series of public lectures on themes related to ‘natural theology’, broadly construed.

 The 2018 Lectures here in Aberdeen will be delivered by world-renowned biblical scholar Professor NT Wright (University of St. Andrews) under the overall title Discerning the Dawn: History, Eschatology and New Creation.

Here is the title of each of the available lectures:

Lecture 1 – The Fallen Shrine: Lisbon 1755 and the Triumph of Epicureanism
Lecture 2 – The Questioned Book: Critical Scholarship and the Gospels
Lecture 3 – The Shifting Sand: The Meanings of ‘History’
Lecture 4 – The End of the World? Eschatology and Apocalyptic in Historical Perspective
Lecture 5 – The Stone the Builders Rejected: Jesus, the Temple and the Kingdom
Lecture 6 – A New Creation: Resurrection and Epistemology

Lecture 1 – The Fallen Shrine: Lisbon 1755 and the Triumph of Epicureanism

 

Recent Books on Paul

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

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There is a bundle of new books out recently (or coming out soon) on the apostle Paul, and by some pretty big hitters too.

Paul_Wright

In case anyone was wondering if N.T. Wright had anything else left to say about Paul after he published his magnum opus several years ago (1,500 pages of text!), he does. And this time it is a biography. I am looking forward to reading this one; I already put in a pre-order.

Paul_Fee

Gordon Fee may be getting old but you couldn’t tell from his writing (incidentally, I imagine folks said the same thing about Paul too). At a brief +/-200 pages this book will make a great read for folks who aren’t looking to exhaust the subject. If you have read Fee’s Pauline Christology I suspect there will be some overlap (or condensing?) but with a gifted writer as Fee is, you will never be bored. Buy this book. It may be his last.

Paul_Campbell

Douglas Cambell is another big hitter in Pauline studies, particularly of the ‘apocalyptic Paul’. I am guessing this book is an attempt to aim some of his scholarly thought (e.g., The Deliverance of God) at more popular audience. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how Campbell teases out his ideas about how Paul’s thought develops and changes from his conversion to his death.

Paul_Barclay

John Barclay has also recently published a major work on Paul (Paul & The Gift), so why another book? Well, this one is part of the ‘Very Brief Histories’ series, so I imagine its genesis has more to do with the publishers wanting Barclay’s authorship than any new developments in Barclay’s thought on Paul. But, at just over 100 pages it would make a nice winter read with a cup of hot chocolate.

Paul_SusanEastman

Finally (for this list anyway), there is the more narrowly focused book by Susan Eastman of Duke Divinity, Paul and the Person: Reframing Paul’s Anthropology. With a foreword (and endorsement) by John Barclay it promises to be rewarding. Although it will probably be most appealing to academics and scholars, it will also probably be relevant for Christians interested in psychology and counseling (due to the focus on personhood).

 

Peter Stuhlmacher on N.T. Wright’s Method

31 Thursday Mar 2016

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Senior theologian Peter Stuhlmacher, from University of Tübingen, has contributed a chapter entitled “N.T. Wrights’s Understanding of Justification and Redemption” in God and the Faithfulness of Paul (Mohr Siebeck 2016). He has some important criticisms as well as a few affirmations.

Here is a quote from Stuhlmacher regarding Wright’s exegetical method (page 371):

Rather than beginning with the historical origin of the individual texts and their statements, Wright prefers to work with entire passages, biblical contexts, and macro perspectives (PFG 965). He immerses himself into the Pauline world of ideas, Paul’s uses of Scripture together with the expectations  of salvation, reconstructs these and integrates Paul’s writings into that reconstruction. This constructive procedure uncovers some new matters that previously remained obscure. But it also gives Wright’s presentation a largely hypothetical character.

Dunn Thinks Wright’s PFG is Too Little Aligned with the New Perspective on Paul

28 Monday Mar 2016

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I am reading through God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N.T. Wright (Mohr Siebeck 2016) and came across this surprising, and somewhat telling, quote from James D.G. Dunn (himself one of the major proponents of the “New Perspective on Paul”) regarding Wright’s big book Paul and the Faithfulness of God:

So what to make of Wright’s (final?) assessment of and contribution to “the new perspective on Paul?” The chief sense is one of disappointment that the new perspective proved to be not very important for him in his climactic treatment of Paul.

[quote from pg. 357]

It seems that, for Dunn at least, N.T. Wright is not “new perspective” enough!

Hmm…

God and the Faithfulness of Paul

25 Friday Mar 2016

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I just received my copy of God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N.T. Wright, just released this month.

God and Faithfulness of Paul

Last summer I read N.T. Wright’s magnum opus, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. I can safely say that it was the longest book I have ever read, cover to cover, by far: a whopping 1,519 pages of text. It was a big deal. And I am glad that I did. Since the purpose of this post is not to review Wright’s PFG suffice it to say that it has changed the way I read Paul’s letters; indeed, I have learned an enormous amount about the significance of the entire story line of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, creation to new creation. Wright’s work is stimulating and thought-provoking in a way that increases my love for Holy Scripture and continually forces me to return to the text.

Paul and the Faithfulness of God

Wright’s work on Paul was monumental. Now I am super excited to begin reading this examination of his work from a group of international scholars. As stated in the introduction (page 6):

[T]his volume is neither a Festschrift nor a refutation, but something entirely different. It is perhaps best described as a conversation among those involved in biblical and theological scholarship as to the positive achievements, potential failings, matters requiring clarification, and future questions that Wright’s PFG elicits for his scholarly peers.

Click the following link to see the table of contents: God-and-the-Faithfulness-of-Paul.