Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

-----

Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Index - New Perspective of Paul

 

Index to the New Perspective of Paul



Readings in N.T. Wright



* * * * * * * * * *

N.T. Wright Pauline Series

RNS Report: "N.T. Wright extends debate with John Piper by releasing Apostle Paul tome"

N.T. Wright, "Paul and the Faithfulness of God" (Vol 4) - Re-Envisaging Israel's Election in Jesus

N.T. Wright, "Paul and the Faithfulness of God" (Vol 4) - The People of God: Israel, Church, Kingdom

















* * * * * * * * * *

Previous NPP Articles

















Charts and Diagrams






The Penal-Substitutionary Theory:

Man has sinned
Jesus died for man's sin
Faith in Jesus removes our sin
The believer is justified and forgiven
and made righteous with Jesus' substitutionary
sacrifice on Calvary's Cross







N.T. Wright, "Paul and the Faithfulness of God" (Vol 4) - Introduction to NPP

Scot McKnight begins a month-long discussion of N.T. Wright's newest Volume 4 on Paul from his summary series of an intended 5-volume set, Christian Origins and the Question of God, begun back in 1992 (Vol. 1 - The Church, Vol's. 2&3 - Jesus and His Resurrection, Vol. 4 - Paul, Vol 5. - untitled). Wright's latest volume deals with how Paul's theology should be viewed within in his own first-century Jewish context and away from the church's more popular Westernized, Medieval, Augustinian context of "salvation by justification.". This latter understanding is readily seen through popular Reformed and Calvinistic systematic doctrines such as eternal security, predestination, election, heaven, hell, salvation, and faith (as mixed or separated from with its opposite polarity within Evangelicalism's Wesleyan, Baptist, and Charismatic churches known as Arminianism re prevenient grace, human choice and freedom, works of faith, holiness, obedience, the divine-human cooperative, and so on). This newer perspective which encompasses all the theological views above is known as the "New Perspective of Paul" (and more accurately might be called the "Newer Perspectives of Paul") which we'll shortly explain.
 
Accordingly, NT Wright has struck a nerve within contemporary Christianity by redirecting the Church's efforts backwards towards its antecedent roots in Jewish Theology and what that meant to the Christianized Jews of Jesus' and Paul's day. And especially after the Apostle Paul's profound Damascus Road experience of Christ where the NT's over-zealous Jewish Rabbi is confronted with the Christ he persecuted, to be profoundly overthrown in his life and thoughts, once blinding him to the deep sublimity of Christ's personage, passion, death, and resurrection. Immediately we see Paul begin a lifetime's discussion to re-interpret (or re-measure) his past Jewish theological training and heritage in the aftermath of the Christ-event that he experienced: both historically, in the context of Israel's Redemptive history; and, personally, within his own religious life context as a priest and Jew.
 
Soon thereafter Paul begins down a very long, and arduous, theological road describing how he has become a Messianic Christian selected to proclaim Jesus to the Gentiles as distinguished from being a Jewish Christian to his Jewish brethren worshipping and ministering in the churches of Jerusalem. To be a Jewish Christian was indicative of the Jerusalem Christian's preference to retain as much of their Jewish heritage as possible (sic., Peter's remedial conciliation to do as they wish while no longer preaching the necessity for circumcision, while avoiding idol meat and sexual immorality, against his own profound discovery of the Gospel's proclaim to all non-Jews and heathen Gentiles: Acts 11 and Acts 15). As a Messianic Christian, Paul - who once was a former Jewish Rabbi but now a Jesus convert, and servant to The Name, respects his Jewish heritage while radically uplifting its OT flavor into, and around, the newer paradigms presented through Jesus of Nazareth as man's Messiah-Savior-Redeemer. This theological understanding of Jesus would quickly revolutionize the reading of the OT through Jesus, and soon necessitated the construction of a New Testament as a series of apostolic books bearing both continuity, and discontinuity, to that of the Jewish/Hebrew Canon (itself solidified several hundred years earlier under the Council of Jamnia during the second Temple period) and to the Christian religion centered upon Jesus, God's Son and Savior.
 
N.T. Wright's 4 volume series (5, overall) is meant to be a legacy-capstone project to his professional theological studies in summary discussion to the following ideas. That Christianity's conflicted legacies were struggling with identification and spiritual meaning even as Jewish doctrine was doing the same. Because of Israel's history of warfare and exile, much of its heritage had been lost and incomplete (we call this period of Talmudic transition late Judaism). With Israel's return to the land from Babylonian exile under Nehemiah (technically, Judah's return, as the southern kingdom of Israel's split kingdom) a massive effort was undertaken by Ezra and the scribes to recapture Israel's ancient heritage and beliefs. From their efforts came the Old Testament, which was a collection of their oral history, prophetic writings, and so forth, during this second temple period of restoration. And from that began a  several hundred year effort to re-teach God's Word to the Jewish people creating many splintering groups of Jewish beliefs (such as John the Baptist's much later Essene group in Jesus' day) which debated the particulars of God's Word.
 
From these efforts arose a Jewish priesthood of scribes to transcribe the OT Scriptures from the classic Hebrew language into the modified Aramaic of their day (thus preserving its records), and the Pharisees, who handled the observances of those records through priestly duties and teachings. By the first century, Rabbinism was beginning to form to disseminate first-century beliefs, practices and precepts of the old Talmudic tradition. It was clearly unformed and not yet solidified because of Jesus' many conflicts with Rabbinic teachings and traditions. And to this turmoil came the Christian church's own conflicts and disagreements with Rabbinic doctrine as each body of believers formed and reformed, consolidated, splintered, and re-consolidated again, until a general body politic arose from each mediating group in the centuries preceding.
 
Each tradition - one old (Judaism), one new (Christianity) - were in the incipient (early or unformed) stages of development. Even as the church's doctrine was forming through the ages of the Church Fathers (Christianity's first six centuries), so too was Rabbinism under its own efforts. And quite often, as is normal with any movement, they each played off the other, reacting to one thing or another. And as each religious group moved towards consolidation, so did the church rapidly move towards codifying its own New Testament Scriptures centered around Jesus' teachings and life story, along with His disciple's apostolic observations and writings. This was generally completed around 150 AD but it wasn't until c.692 that the NT was fully instated at the Council of Trullan:
 
"For the Orthodox, the recognition of these writings as authoritative was formalized in the Second Council of Trullan of 692, although it was nearly universally accepted in the mid 300's.[2] The Biblical canon was the result of debate and research, reaching its final term for Catholics at the dogmatic definition of the Council of Trent in the 16th Century, when the Old Testament Canon was finalized in the Catholic Church as well.[3]" - Wikipedia
 
Proceeding apace were reciprocal theological efforts to comport NT Christian beliefs with the OT Jewish Scriptures showing the continuities and discontinuities between historical era and redemptive activity. Thus the Church Father's worked towards developing an Apostolic theology from within their own cultural settings of Greek Hellenism and from the Syrian-Coptic-African Christian attitudes of the early church (remember, Alexandria still held the great libraries of the learned at that time). What resulted were years and years and years of developing dogmas, doctrines, church traditions and beliefs, as regionally demarcated geographically even as they were temporally demarcated culturally. Formative church doctrines such as the Trinity of God or, the nature of Jesus' divine and human nature (known as hypostasis), slathered back and forth creating doctrinal ideas reflective of a church's own culturally-based ideologies as seen in the separation between Roman/Western Orthodoxy as versus the Greek/Eastern Orthodox branches of the church. And later in the Medieval ages between Reformed bodies politic as versus a Catholic understanding. Or even in today's modernistic Bible-believing churches as versus the older mainline denominational churches. Added to these doctrinal differences has come philosophic and cultural ingression into the theologies of the church. From the Greek Hellenism within first century Judaism; to Medieval doctrine's founded in late Hellenism; to today's philosophies of enlightenment - both modern and postmodern, with all the residual affects that each bring to the other.
 
Thus Sanders, Dunn, and Wright's propositions to attempt a return, if possible, from the church's Westernized, systematic theologies steeped in a plethora of late Medieval philosophies, Reformed-Enlightenment, and Evangelic-Modernism to a first century Jewish understanding of Jesus and Paul's teachings. Of course time and culture cannot be avoided, and thus the transfer vehicle in this case is postmodernism to help us redact earlier philosophic eras with its engrained prejudices and beliefs. So when describing this rich tradition of doctrinal turmoil and philosophical rebuttal we find ourselves within the larger philosophical ideas of how one can know God, oneself, one's senses, this world, and all that is within it - as set apart from one's heritage and traditions, and socio-cultural upbringing. As such, Christianity has always been embroiled within the ideas of  a larger philosophical setting. In fact, the disciplines of theology and philosophy find themselves as inseparable twins to the idea of "how one knows what one thinks s/he knows." Which has been the great, good benefit of postmodernism to today's church theologies. The early churches were no less embroiled within these discussions when dealing with the Greek philosophies of Aristotelianism and Platonism; its many perambulations as found in Augustine, Aquinas (Scholasticism and Thomism); and the later arising Reformational ideas found within Catholic v. Eastern, Lutheran v. Reformed doctrines. No foreigner to these debates is today's contemporary church working through its own ideas of a literalistic bible enmeshed within a culture of in anti-intellectualism and anti-science to that of postmodernism's meta-scientific, existential-phenomenological debates. Certainly, theology and philosophy go hand-in-hand even as faith works both within-and-without of religious beliefs.
 
Consequently, Tom Wright will occasionally work through some of these ideas (as he did in Vol. 1) but mostly, one may expect biblical discourses on New Testament doctrine while struggling through the development of a more up-to-date hermeneutical reading of the Word of God known as critical realism that is basically a blended reading of the Bible with a science-orientated view to it. Which by this means that a critical-realistic reading of the Bible is a less naïve reading of God's Word than the standard interpretation used by many pew members today as instructed by their pastors from the pulpit; or exampled by Sunday School teachers in class; or the many inspirational Christian books and devotional tracts that one reads today.
 
And thus, falling across the rich traditions of E.P. Sanders and J.D.G. Dunn, N.T. Wright works through the ideas of the New Perspective of Paul  and away from the heavily influenced Lutheran and Reformed views of Paul (known as the older perspectives of the church. That of Calvin, Luther, Law and Grace, Faith and Law, covenantal nomism, etc). And towards a more Jewish-Pauline perspective of Jesus:
 
"It is often noted that the singular title "the new perspective" gives an unjustified impression of unity. It is a field of study in which many scholars are actively pursuing research and continuously revising their own theories in light of new evidence, and who do not necessarily agree with each other on any given issue. It has been suggested by many that the plural title "the newer perspectives" may therefore be more accurate. In 2003, N. T. Wright, distancing himself from both Sanders and Dunn, commented that "there are probably almost as many ‘new perspective’ positions as there are writers espousing it – and I disagree with most of them".[5] There are certain trends and commonalities within the movement, but what is held in common is the belief that the "old perspective" (the Lutheran and Reformed interpretations of Paul the Apostle and Judaism) is fundamentally incorrect.
 
"Since the Protestant Reformation (c. 1517), studies of Paul's writings have been heavily influenced by Lutheran and Reformed views that are said to ascribe the negative attributes that they associated with sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism to first-century Judaism. These Lutheran and Reformed views on Paul's Writings are called the "old perspective" by adherents of the "New Perspective on Paul". Thus, the "new perspective" is an attempt to lift Paul's letters out of the Lutheran/Reformed framework and interpret them based on what is said to be an understanding of first-century Judaism, taken on its own terms. (Within this article, "the old perspective" refers specifically to Reformed and Lutheran traditions, especially the views descended from John Calvin and Martin Luther, see also Law and Gospel.)
 
"Paul, especially in his Epistle to the Romans, advocates justification through faith in Jesus Christ over justification through works of the Law. In the old perspective, Paul was understood to be arguing that Christians' good works would not factor into their salvation, only their faith. According to the new perspective, Paul was questioning only [practices and] observances such as circumcision and dietary laws, not good works in general." - Wikipedia
 
R.E. Slater
October 1, 2013
edited October 8, 2013
 
* * * * * * * * * * * * *


We Will Call it “PFG”
 
I begin with this: In my lifetime only a few books have been like this one (set). I consider EP Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Martin Hengel’s Judaism and Hellenism to be two rivals, with Jimmy Dunn’s Paul the Apostle a close third. This book rivals and may excel the others, so I want you to understand that we will be examining a book that will undoubtedly shape conversations for at least a decade and will influence discussions for decades.
 
Which of NT Wright’s book is most influential? your favorite?
 
Where will we be going? Beyond what most have called Paul’s theology or New Testament (NT) theology or NT history, and behind much of what is called both. Here’s how Tom puts it:
Here we may note one particular result of this proposal. Most works on ‘Pauline theology’ have made soteriology, including justification, central. So, in a sense, does this one. But in the Jewish context ‘soteriology’ is firmly located within the understanding of the people of God. God calls Abraham’s family, and rescues them from Egypt. That is how the story works, and that is the story Paul sees being reworked around Jesus and the spirit. This explains why chapter 10, on ‘election’, is what it is, and why it is the longest in the book. I hasten to add, as readers of that chapter will discover, that this does not (as some have suggested) collapse soteriology into ecclesiology. Rather, it pays attention to the Jewish belief which Paul himself firmly endorses, that God’s solution to the plight of the world begins with the call of Abraham. Nor does this mean that ‘the people of God’ are defined, smugly as it were, simply as the beneficiaries of salvation. The point of the Jewish vocation as Paul understood it was that they were to be the bearers of salvation to the rest of the world. That, in turn, lies at the heart of his own vocation, issuing in his own characteristic praxis.
Tom sent some of this manuscript about four years ago when he was on sabbatical at Princeton and at the time there was not yet an introduction. So the manuscript began right where it begins now (without that Intro), in a most surprising place, with [the Pualine letter to] Philemon. That little letter [has been] often ignored. But Wright opens up with a letter from Pliny the Younger writing to a friend about a runaway freedman and then Wright compares that letter with Paul’s letter to a friend, Philemon, about his “wandering” (not quite runaway) slave who had become a Christian while [ironically] Paul, of all places, was in [the] prison in Ephesus [for being a slave to Christ] … all to show that instead of [(the Roman view of)] hierarchy, and power, and benevolence, we [have in its place the view of] brotherhood, and family, and love, and forgiveness. In other words, a “world apart” (6).
 
Instead of a [being considered a] fugitive, Onesimus is [to be regarded as] a brother and Paul’s own [adopted] son. In those terms we see the heart of the Pauline experiment of grace flowing in all directions. Paul’s word is “fellowship”: he is creating a new family, or God is creating a new family, that includes people from all tribes and nationalities and statuses. Gone, then, is the power hierarchy so typical of Rome.
 
Wright has a wrinkle on [the word] “for-ever,” where he sees a possible looking back to the [books of the] Pentateuch in which a slave could choose to be a slave forever by refusing manumission [(release from slavery)]. Wright then suggests Onesimus will say "Please let me back and I will serve you forever." And then v. 21 might suggest manumission as the far reach of what Philemon can do.

A classic paragraph from Tom Wright:
These discussions about the actual situation and the request Paul made have tended, as I said, to make exegetes overlook the point which is just as important in its way as the question of what Paul was asking for, namely the argument he uses to back up this central appeal. In order to make his triple (and increasingly cautious) request, Paul adopts a strategy so striking in its social and cultural implications, so powerful in its rhetorical appeal, and so obviously theologically grounded, that despite the chorus of dismissive voices ancient, and modern, the letter can hold up its head, like Reepi- cheep the Mouse beside the talking bears and elephants, alongside its senior but not theologically superior cousins, Romans, Galatians and the rest (16). 
What we have then is a radical revisioning of monotheism and [divine] power on the basis of the cross [(where rule and power is given up)], and resurrection’s power to create one new body in Christ [between all men and tribes and nations]. It’s all about learning to think through this thing called “worldview”, as Tom says it:
In particular, this way of approaching the matter explains why the tendency since at least medieval times in the western church to organize Paul’s concepts around his vision of ‘salvation’ in particular has distorted the larger picture, has marginalized elements which were central and vital to him, and – because this ‘salvation’ has often been understood in a dualistic, even Platonic, fashion – has encouraged a mode of study in which Paul and his soteriology is seen in splendid isolation from his historical context. Paul experienced ‘salvation’ on the road to Damascus, people suppose; his whole system of thought grew from that [(isolating)] viewpoint; so we do not need to consider how he relates to the worlds of Israel, Greece or Rome! How very convenient. And how very untrue. If we take that route, a supposed ‘Pauline soteriology’ will swell to a distended size and, like an oversized airline traveller, end up sitting not only in its own seat but in those on either side as well. In particular, it will become dangerously self-referential: the way to be saved is by believing, but the main theological point Paul taught was soteriology, so the way to be saved is by believing in Pauline soteriology (‘justification by faith’). For Paul, that would be a reductio ad absurdum. The way to be saved is not by believing that one is saved. In Paul’s view, the way to be saved is by believing in Jesus as the crucified and risen lord.*
[*however, most evangelics that I know are always careful to connect the two thoughts of faith in Christ and not to separate them so foolishly as faith in one's faith. - re slater]
The hypothesis I offer in this book is that we can find just such a vantage-point when we begin by assuming that Paul remained a deeply Jewish theologian who had rethought and reworked every aspect of his native Jewish theology in the light of the Messiah and the spirit, resulting in his own vocational self-understanding as the apostle to the pagans.
Tom will be using the story of Philemon throughout PFG so it might be good to read it again, at least the core parts in Philemon 8-22
Philemon 8   For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty,  9 yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus.  10 I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.  11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me12 I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.  13 I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel;  14 but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.  15 Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever16 no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. 
Philemon 17   So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me18 If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.  19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self.  20 Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ.  21 Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say
Philemon 22   One thing more—prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you.
Here is the outline to PFG, and those numbers are page numbers (so, Yes, this is a big double volume).
 
 
BOOK I
 
Contents: Parts I and II xi Preface xv
 
Part I - PAUL AND HIS WORLD
  1. Return of the Runaway? 3
  2. Like Birds Hovering Overhead: the Faithfulness of the God of Israel 75
  3. Athene and Her Owl: the Wisdom of the Greeks 197
  4. A Cock for Asclepius: ‘Religion’ and ‘Culture’ in Paul’s World 246
  5. The Eagle Has Landed: Rome and the Challenge of Empire 279

Part II - THE MINDSET OF THE APOSTLE
  1. A Bird in the Hand? The Symbolic Praxis of Paul’s World 351
  2. The Plot, the Plan and the Storied Worldview 456
  3. Five Signposts to the Apostolic Mindset 538
Bibliography for Parts I and II 572

BOOK II

Contents: Parts III and IV ix

Part III - PAUL’S THEOLOGY

Introduction to Part III 609
  1. The One God of Israel, Freshly Revealed 619
  2. The People of God, Freshly Reworked 774
  3. God’s Future for the World, Freshly Imagined 1043
Part IV - PAUL IN HISTORY

Introduction to Part IV 1269
  1. The Lion and the Eagle: Paul in Caesar’s Empire 1271
  2. A Different Sacrifice: Paul and ‘Religion’ 1320
  3. The Foolishness of God: Paul among the Philosophers 1354
  4. To Know the Place for the First Time: Paul and His Jewish Context 1408
  5. Signs of the New Creation: Paul’s Aims and Achievements 1473


* * * * * * * * * * * * *
 
NT Wright Series - Christian Origins and
the Question of God, 5 Volumes (4 completed)
 
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
 

 
Part of a five-volume project on the theological questions surrounding the origins of Christianity, this book offers a reappraisal of literary, historical and theological readings of the New Testament, arguing for a form of "critical realism" that facilitates different readings of the text.

  • Paperback: 535 pages
  • Publisher: Fortress Press; 1st North American edition (September 1992)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0800626818
  • ISBN-13: 978-0800626815 




  • Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2) by N. T. Wright (Aug 1, 1997)

    In this highly anticipated volume, N. T. Wright focuses directly on the historical Jesus: Who was he? What did he say? And what did he mean by it?
     
    Wright begins by showing how the questions posed by Albert Schweitzer a century ago remain central today. Then he sketches a profile of Jesus in terms of his prophetic praxis, his subversive stories, the symbols by which he reordered his world, and the answers he gave to the key questions that any world view must address. The examination of Jesus' aims and beliefs, argued on the basis of Jesus' actions and their accompanying riddles, is sure to stimulate heated response. Wright offers a provocative portrait of Jesus as Israel's Messiah who would share and bear the fate of the nation and would embody the long-promised return of Israel's God to Zion. 
     
  • Paperback: 741 pages
  • Publisher: Fortress Press (August 1, 1997)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0800626826
  • ISBN-13: 978-0800626822 

  •  
     
     
    Why did Christianity begin, and why did it take the shape it did? To answer this question – which any historian must face – renowned New Testament scholar N.T. Wright focuses on the key points: what precisely happened at Easter? What did the early Christians mean when they said that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead? What can be said today about his belief?
     
    This book, third is Wright’s series Christian Origins and the Question of God, sketches a map of ancient beliefs about life after death, in both the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds. It then highlights the fact that the early Christians’ belief about the afterlife belonged firmly on the Jewish spectrum, while introducing several new mutations and sharper definitions. This, together with other features of early Christianity, forces the historian to read the Easter narratives in the gospels, not simply as late rationalizations of early Christian spirituality, but as accounts of two actual events: the empty tomb of Jesus and his "appearances."
     
    How do we explain these phenomena? The early Christians’ answer was that Jesus had indeed been bodily raised from the dead; that was why they hailed him as the messianic "son of God." No modern historian has come up with a more convincing explanation. Facing this question, we are confronted to this day with the most central issues of the Christian worldview and theology.
    • Paperback: 740 pages
    • Publisher: Fortress Press (March 1, 2003)
    • Language: English
    • ISBN-10: 0800626796
    • ISBN-13: 978-0800626792
     
     
    This highly anticipated two-book fourth volume in N. T. Wright's magisterial series, Christian Origins and the Question of God, is destined to become the standard reference point on the subject for all serious students of the Bible and theology. The mature summation of a lifetime's study, this landmark book pays a rich tribute to the breadth and depth of the apostle's vision, and offers an unparalleled wealth of detailed insights into his life, times, and enduring impact.
     
    Wright carefully explores the whole context of Paul's thought and activity— Jewish, Greek and Roman, cultural, philosophical, religious, and imperial— and shows how the apostle's worldview and theology enabled him to engage with the many-sided complexities of first-century life that his churches were facing. Wright also provides close and illuminating readings of the letters and other primary sources, along with critical insights into the major twists and turns of exegetical and theological debate in the vast secondary literature. The result is a rounded and profoundly compelling account of the man who became the world's first, and greatest, Christian theologian.

  • Paperback: 1700 pages
  • Publisher: Fortress Press (November 1, 2013)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0800626834
  • ISBN-13: 978-0800626839


  •  
    Biography
     
    N.T. Wright is Bishop of Durham and was formerly Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey and dean of Lichfield Cathedral. He taught New Testament studies for twenty years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities. Wright's full-scale works The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, and The Resurrection of the Son of God are part of a projected six-volume series entitled Christian Origins and the Question of God. Among his many other published works are The Original Jesus, What Saint Paul Really Said and The Climax of the Covenant. He is also coauthor with Marcus Borg of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions and the volume on Colossians and Philemon in The Tyndale New Testament Commentary series.
     
     
     
     
    Continue to Index -
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    Monday, September 30, 2013

    Despair and Disillusionment: "It's All Rubbish"

     

    ... And when she came to the mountain to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet.
    And Gehazi came to push her away. But the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for
    she is in bitter distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.”

    - 2 Kings 4.27 (ESV)

    ...Who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that
    each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. And each of
    the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the
    trumpet was beside me.


    Is life all rubbish? Is everything that we have striven for, tried, and done, rubbish? Have we found ourselves on a never-ending merry-go-round dancing to the tunes-of-the-day faking content in the masquerade of life's daily grind?

    Is there a God? And if so, where can He be found? Can God be found at church? Can God be found in Christianity? How many times have you asked yourself these questions? And how many times have these questions come back unanswered to your complete dissatisfaction? Or, as a Christian, how many times have you heard that God can be found here, at this location, at this place, this time, this event, this school, or in this idea?

    Cave of Despair by Benjamin West
    Christian disillusionment can be a very difficult thing to face, especially when finally determining there is nowhere to look - neither inwards nor outwards nor upwards - because all is rubbish and filled with deep despair and angst. At first, the erstwhile seeker would flee to wherever God was said to be. But once arriving to belatedly discover that, "No, God was not there at all... at least for me." Misbelieving that to get to the center of something that is "holy and wonderful" is to perhaps find a kind of escape from life's hard questions and even more disturbing ills. Years of hard work - of looking and spending precious time or money, of ministry and helps - may have produced no further insight than what one had begun years earlier. Causing a deep cry of soulful despair believing "All that was done was simply rubbish!"

    And maybe it is. Maybe we have been deep contributors to this world's rubbish heap. Building into frail lives hate and despair, suffering and pain, even as we have been in turmoil and pain ourselves. Perhaps the garbage troughs that abound are part of our handiwork to this life which we have misspent and ill-provided for, and now must live with, under its stink and scour.

    And so, where is this deliverance? Where are the answers? What did we expect when we thought to ourselves that we had found the answers to life's dilemmas? Or, having found none, and giving up, to escape into those glittery worlds of disillusionment to laugh and drink, to mock and lie, one's problems away as no more than a fantasy dream?

    Wings of Despair
    Perhaps as a pastor you've labored all your life under the idea of a Christian hope that others would discover the Jesus you know and love, but to then see your ministry lapse and fail against all reasonable effort and prayer? Perhaps as a faithful believer you've given you're blood, sweat, and tears to the building up of God's church by your gifts and ministry, only to find you've been building on the wrong foundations, or misunderstanding your direction and calling?

    But like any life that is lived, at the last we must either thank God for it, or repent from it, and trust to His wisdom and grace, however much we may have missed the road signs along the way saying to turn back, do not go down this road, beware of washed out bridges ahead. While we were busy building bigger sheep pens for God, God was busy building that same sheep pen around us. Guiding and protecting us where possible. Bringing us to doubt and futility if necessary. Perhaps stopping us - turning us hard around, up-ending all our fantasies and whims, all our misspent days and intoxications, our misbeliefs and the half-truths we dared not face.

    One of the jobs of God is simply to push hard after us until we see Him in all that we say and do. That it was by our own hand that we have chained ourselves to sin and ruin, even as it was by His hand of grace and mercy that would break those hardened chains imprisoning heart and soul. To finally know that all that we are, have, and have done, is His to do with as He pleases. That there is nothing remaining behind the sacred Temple curtain save His love and forgiveness beckoning "Enter into the Holy of Holies, and there abide in My holy presence with Jesus My Son, as unto Myself."

    Usually the church is the last place to find God, even as it is the first place to find a fellowship filled with other flawed followers of Jesus seeking meaning to life's questions. Instead of finding holiness and love we meet many like ourselves simply trying to work life out - how to love, how to forgive, how to rest in Jesus' provide. Hoping to find a place where honesty might be present instead of the lies and dishonesty we speak to one another and too frequently live.

    And yet, church is a place that should challenge our disillusionments. A place that might fit us around God's faithful presence in our lives. And then, "Push us back out into a world from which we had fled." Knowing its ok to live broken. Knowing that I'm rubbish without Jesus in my life. Knowing that escaping doesn't help. Knowing that God lives in-and-through His creation. Within this very world that we live with all its relationships and interconnectivity. And even within His Church struggling itself with knowing God's wisdom and leadership.

    But the radical church also realizes that wherever a person is in their life, even so God is there with him, or her, in that very same life, however it is... or isn't whether church-bourne or not. That God's "Holy of Holies" is this very world in which we live. Here and not later, not there, not some other thing, person, or organization. Not someday when I die. Not in the Heaven to come. Nor in the Hereafter of life. But here. Now. Today. This very hour. Within these very soiled relationships that surround us. That inhabit our being with their presence and challenge, turmoil and strife, beauty and wonder.

    Forest of Despair
    That escaping from this life to somewhere else, or to someone else, or to something else, is not the answer. But rather, to know that where we are here-and-now is exactly where God is. Who has given to us all that we need to face the things we're not willing to face and are trying to flee from. That it is possible to suffer through the difficulties that we each live knowing God's deep love in the face of evil and wickedness. That we each bear burdens, must make tough decisions, or seek help when necessary, while learning (or providing) patience and forgiveness. Hope and healing. Wisdom and grace. For some, this will never be the case, and it is to those of God's honored martyrs whom we might have been able to help had we been more able to hear and to listen, to seek and to save.

    But for many, spared such devastation, even as we seek the mountain tops of life, so must we learn to embrace the desperate valleys lying between those high pinnacles of life. Believing that even in these self-same valleys of unknowing and wander, lies God's blessings, His presence and faithfulness. To accept that all of our life is God's holy, blood-bought temple - from the highs of it to the lows of it - that we might abide within it's perimeters as devout, sacred, holy, precious, fragile, and strong. That we are the church where God resides - even as we must reside in Him. That our failure to find God is the failure of not seeing God within the interior spaces of our lives. Instead of looking out-and-around, here-and-there, running from place-to-place, we have forgotten to look within. For it is this God-in-the-mirror whom we have been looking for all our lives who has been with us as constant companion. Whatever the difficulty, the lie, the grief, the deceit, or dishonor. It was He who was with us, who dwells within us, by His Holy Spirit. Who is present with us along every step of our pride, our sin, our failures, our ill love for self or others. It was this God that we dared not look at within. Who abides with us while ever whispering healing and peace in Jesus' precious name.

    Is life all rubbish? More closely, is my life all rubbish? Is there a God? And if so, where can He be found? Can God be found at church? Can God be found in Christianity? The answers are both yes, and no, as you would expect. But it all depends on where you look, upon what you believe, and upon whom you depend, even when you think this God is absent from very life itself.

    To simply look at ourselves for life's answers will end in despair. But to look within ourselves at the God who is our Redeemer-ReCreator is to find hope and healing. The journey begins as it ever did with God alone through all the conflict, uncertainty, and doubt, that will arise. Life, after all, is difficult. It is hard. We will suffer. But we are not alone.

    The answers to life are provided by a God who works through us - charging us with its remake and recreation. Its reclamation and provide. Even as God does now through us such as we are - through His broken church and flawed people. We are the hope to the world around us whenever Jesus is there to bind up all in God's grace and mercy. The foundations have been set by God in His Savior-Son. And empowerment given through His Holy Spirit. Not in some magical, mystical, extra-supernatural way. But through our fleshly hands and feet - our humbled tongues and hearts - our deep passions and patience - within this hard life that we must live.

    Into the Valley of Despair
    For it is left to our very selves to redeem a broken humanity for man's holy reclaim and rebirth in Jesus' place, and as His ambassadors, and by the power of His Holy Spirit. However we are gifted. However we are composed. Including all that we are but think that we are not - or are not enough - to be worthy vessels for the Lord's usage. But to know it is we, God's people (as are all people on this Earth though they reject His presence and duty, bounty and provide) who must be God's holy script written in the emptiness of the flesh who must overcome despite our disillusionments and pain, failures and sin. To persevere even as we are God's very example of resurrection into the newness of life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Once wearing rags but now clothed with holy vestments of God's empowering love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, and hope. These are no mean cloths to be despised or ignored. But cloths to the newness and testimonies of the power of God in the common man's life who thinks himself or herself to have been forgotten of God and left lying about without purpose or end.

    For we are not without help. The same God who created this world will recreate it again through very mankind itself - however broken and sinful. For it is to humanity's deep burden and responsibility that we must wholly shoulder and undertake this godly work. But it cannot begin without Jesus leading its vanguard. And through the Church by whose humble and merciful example and leadership would raise high God's holy banners in truth and justice, love and wisdom, against this world's knowing response. But perhaps, like Jonah the prophet who came unwillingly to sinful Nineveh to preach repentance, perhaps this world does repent of its sins and ills and leans into the mystery of God's goodness and love if even for a time, and times, and half of times.

    Even so, let it begin with  God's people today, moved by divine hands and repentant hearts, on bended knees and bowed heads, in prayer, and in unity's soulful fellowship to those broken worlds lying all about. Let us speak forgiveness and help, thoughtfulness and kindness, not forsaking those in need. Abandoned and betrayed. Unloved and despised. And let us speak powerfully in the voice of the Spirit who Himself moves the hardened hearts of men and women. Even we ourselves who were at one time rocks of granite against the Spirit's implore, prayers, and petitions.

    Let us learn to build better dams and bridges. To govern and legislate more wisely. To teach and educate the youth of the future. To be better parents, moms and dads, sisters and brothers. To create dreams both lofty and practical. To know the negotiables in life, and how to negotiate them. To write passionately. Live passionately. Love passionately. Seek grace. Build trust. And be of good will and cheer. To learn forgiveness and give grace when we are deeply wronged. And when wronged again, to seek humility and wisdom, knowing we are not alone as martyrs to the cross of Christ, for the God of the universe is ever with us despite our doubts and fears. That at the end, it's only "all rubbish" if we allow it, or think it to be, when beholding life's foibles in our despairs, our hopeless futilities, apart from the Christ of our salvation and rebirth who is very life to our bones, heart, hands, and head. This is a truth. Amen and amen.

    R.E. Slater
    September 30, 2013

    For further discussion on this topic go to -
     Devising a Meaning for David Guetta's, "Titanium ft. Sia"





    Saturday, September 28, 2013

    Of Dads and Daughters, of Parenting and Love: "Wakefulness in a Night of Fireworks"


    Inspiration is as much about theology as reading long words and even longer explanations behind complex and complicated ideas. But tonight, let's step back a moment and simply reflect on the wonders of God's creation in this special moment recorded between a dad and his daughter when she couldn't sleep thinking she was hearing fireworks outside her home.
     
    R.E. Slater
    September 28, 2013
     
     
    Tonight You Belong to Me (Cover) - Me and my 4 y.o.
     
     
    Published on Sep 17, 2013
    She thought she kept hearing fireworks and couldn't sleep,
    so we sang to keep her mind preoccupied. In the end,
    nothing competes with fireworks.


    * * * * * * * *


    A Daughter Poem
     
    A daughter thanks her dad for his love. 
     
    A Dad's Love
    by Samantha R. Almodova
     
    On sunny days and dark nights,
    in troubled times and pointless fights,
    you've been right there through it all,
    you've stood your ground when you could have taken the fall.
    Many times my mouth has slipped free,
    but you were always there to put it back where it was supposed to be.
    You've taught me a lot, and a lot I have learned.
    You've given me the tables and many I have turned.
    You deserve the world, but only a poem I could give,
    but another gift I have given is to learn,
    that the life of a father is an awesome life to live.
    Thank you dad for your love.
     
     
    * * * * * * * *
     
     
    The cutest video ever? Quite possibly.
    Duet between a father and his daughter
     
    by John Jalsevac
    Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:08 EST
     
    Being a parent has its challenges. But as a young dad with three kids (Four, really. But the fourth is keeping a low profile for the time being.), I know that there are joys associated with parenthood that surpass just about anything else I've ever experienced.
     
    It's quite simply impossible to put into words that feeling you experience as you watch your children quietly playing with their toys, or reading a book, or tearing through the house chasing one another amidst peals of laughter, or sleeping peacefully after a long, hard day of play.
     
    Non-parent outsiders often see nothing but the diapers, the tantrums in the grocery stores, the insistent demands for food at inopportune moments, and the squabbles, and conclude that parenting is simply hard. Well, it's true, parenthood is hard. But that's not the whole story. What they can't fully understand is the sheer awesomeness of these little people, who give back 1000 times over in love and hilarity whatever they demand from us in energy and patience.
     
    Anyway, all that is simply a prelude to this video that is making the rounds on Youtube which, by focusing on one of those awesome moments experienced by one dad as he tried to soothe his unutterably cute daughter back to sleep, has made me feel even more lucky to be a dad, and to be able share such moments with the miracles that are my own kids.
     
     
    * * * * * * * *
     
     
    Another Daughter Poem
     
    A mother writes to her daughter letting her know how much she loves her.
     
    As I Watch You Grow
    by Kay Theese
     
    Do you know how much you mean to me?
    As you grow into what you will be.
    You came from within, from just beneath my heart
    it's there you'll always be though your own life will now start.
    You're growing so fast it sends me awhirl,
    With misty eyes I ask, Where's my little girl?
    I know sometimes to you I seem harsh and so unfair,
    But one day you will see, I taught you well because I care.
    The next few years will so quickly fly,
    With laughter and joy, mixed with a few tears to cry.
    As you begin your growth to womanhood, this fact you must know,
    You'll always be my source of pride, no matter where you go.
    You must stand up tall and proud, within you feel no fear,
    For all you dreams and goals, sit before you very near.
    With god's love in your heart and the world by its tail,
    You'll always be my winner, and victory will prevail.
    For you this poem was written, with help from above,
    To tell you in a rhythm of your Mother's heartfelt Love!

     
    *Written and dedicated to my precious daughter - Tammy in 1990