-
The Resurrection of the Son of God

I just finished reading N.T. Wright's book, the title of this post, and it was excellent. I haven't fully processed everything yet, so this isn't going to be any kind of substantial post on it. These are just my initial thoughts and feelings.

I always find the end of Wright's books to be the best, because it is at that point that he takes his historical conclusions, and his arguements, and all the questions he has answered and moves them up a level to ask, in one way or another, so what? I also find the end of Wright's books, at least the books in this series, to be the most frustrating. He always briefly mentions what is coming up in his next volume, and I never want to wait until his next volume is out. I want it now.

For this specific book, his conclusion is something I have heard from him before, in other books or maybe sermons or both. It is his threefold point on what the resurrection means. A summary: many people short circuit from the resurrection to the entire Christian belief system and worldview, and this is not valid. The resurrection alone does not necessitate all that we like to tie on with it, especially ideas about Jesus divinity. Instead, there are three meanings, and one is the idea that Jesus is divine, but this idea comes later and has other things added on to it. The two more immediate meanings are that Jesus is Israel's messiah, God is acting now to bring freedom from exile to his people and all the follows from the messiah having come, and two that Jesus is the true lord of all the world, not just the Jewish messiah. Thirdly, there comes divinity and trinity and the like. Now, this is all good, but somewhere along the line I always fail to make a connection; I am not sure where it is, or what I am missing, but I just don't get parts of what is going on at the end.

I can't really say more about it until I have it clear in my own head. The book is excellent, as is everything I have read by Wright, I learned a lot from it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forgiveness: A Hard Word From Luther

-
"Those who follow Christ grieve more over the sin of their offenders than over the loss or offense to themselves. And they do this that they may recall those offenders from their sin rather than avenge the wrongs they themselves have suffered. Therefore they put off the form of their own righteousness and put on the form of those others, praying for their persecutors, blessing those who curse, doing good to the evil-doers, preparing to pay the penalty and make satisfaction for their very enemies that they may be saved. This is the gospel and the example of Christ." - Martin Luther (Quoted by Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, pg. 161-162)
Read more

A Good Tree Bears Good Fruit....

-
Image
"Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." - Matthew 7:17-18 "One of the most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. That's because the goal is the direction-setter of the system, the definer of discrepancies that require action, the indicator of compliance, failure, or success toward which balancing feedback loops work. If the goal is defined badly, if it doesn't measure what it's supposed to measure, if it doesn't reflect the real welfare of the system, then the system can't possibly produce a desirable result. Systems, like the three wishes in the traditional fairy tale, have a terrible tendency to produce exactly and only what you ask them to produce. Be careful what you ask them to produce." - Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems. 
Read more

A Gracious Reading of Rob Bell

-
The Journey So Far The controversy rages on over Rob Bell's upcoming new book. No matter what happens now, this controversy has effectively guaranteed that 'everyone who is anyone' will need to read this book. Either to find out what is wrong and bash it, or because someone we generally disagree with also disagrees with the book so it has to be good stuff! Then, because 'everyone' is reading it, people like me will 'have to' read it to. After all, I am a pastor, and if many of my people are reading and being influenced by a book, don't I need to know what is going on as well?  Or so the reasoning will go... and perhaps I will read it, who knows. In the meantime, none of this will stop me from continuing to join this fray which I probably ought to have stayed out of in the first place. Onwards, Christian... :) The Latest Salvo The latest salvo has been fired by DeYoung  claiming that not only do we not need to talk with Bell but, more importantly, it
Read more