Before I get on to part three of “The narrative-historical reading of the New Testament: what’s in it for me?”, I want to make a few clarifying comments (not for the first time) about the “salvation” of some Gentiles at Antioch in Pisidia in… ( | 3 comments)
In the first part of this three-part post I outlined i) what I understand by a narrative-historical hermeneutic, ii) why it cuts across the grain of mainstream evangelical thinking, and iii) in general terms how I think it can be shown that this way… ( | 11 comments)
A narrative-historical reading of the New Testament, which I strongly advocate, perhaps too strongly at times, makes the straightforward assumption that the theological content of the New Testament—its proclamations, arguments, instructions,… ( | 21 comments)
I had a very enjoyable and encouraging couple of hours this evening teaching a class on Romans at Chelmsford Cathedral. Much of it was a discussion of the differences between Reformation readings that make justification by faith the organizing… ( | 17 comments)
Steven Opp is an evangelist. Remarkably, he has read my book The Future of the People of God—I imagine he is the only “evangelist” to have done so—and he wants to know whether the narrative-historical reading of Romans can be reconciled… ( | 56 comments)
I really like this comment from Steven Opp—first, because it gives me an opportunity to address in a bit more detail the relation between the justification of Gentiles on the basis of what they have done and the justification of the people of God by… ( | 7 comments)
The popular view is that when Christians die, they go to heaven to be with God for ever and ever. This is a sub-biblical notion that has to some extent been corrected in recent years, thanks not least to Tom Wright. We are now much more likely to… ( | 12 comments)
We had a very interesting session on the Book of Revelation in Harlesden last Tuesday evening. The big hermeneutical question it raised, in my view, is whether we live in the story it tells or after the story it tells. Barney… ( | 5 comments)
This question was put to me via the contact form. It’s brief and I’m not entirely sure where it’s coming from. My guess is that the questioner is from a Calvinist background and wants to know whether my writings are safe to read,… ( | 10 comments)
A four hour ferry journey across Lake Van gives me the opportunity to write up some reflections on chapter seven of Tom Wright’s [amazon:978-0281061464:inline], in which he describes how the clash between God and Caesar plays out in the story… ( | 1 comment)
Chapter 6 of Tom Wright’s How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels is entitled “The Launching of God’s Renewed People”. I read it on a rather scary bus ride through the mountains from Diyarbakir to Tatvan on… ( | 1 comment)
In order to distinguish his own approach from well-meaning but misguided attempts to prove that Jesus was divine, Wright argues in [amazon:0281061467:inline] that the Gospels do not aim to prove Jesus’ divinity; rather they presuppose… ( | 118 comments)
Yesterday we made it all the way from Dubai to Duhok, in what used to be Assyria, via Abu Dhabi and Erbil. All in all a rather uneventful journey. I got a good 80 pages into Wright’s [amazon:978-0281061464:inline], and so far I think my main… ( | 9 comments)
I have downloaded Tom Wright’s new book [amazon:0281061467:inline] and plan to read it as we travel through northern Iraq and eastern Turkey on our way home from Dubai. I am not expecting any great surprises—not in the book, at least; the… ( | 9 comments)
I will be speaking at a church in one of the labour camps Friday afternoon. My plan is to explain what Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians is all about and why it is worth taking the trouble to read it. I will stress the fact that Ephesians is a… ( | 8 comments)
Brian LePort, who regularly takes the trouble to highlight posts on this blog, for which I am very grateful, has posted a great list of the “ten most difficult doctrinal/theological subjects that contemporary Christians must address”. I don’t… ( | 27 comments)
While we’re on the subject of what people in the New Testament had to do to be saved, I notice that Larry Hurtado whose blog I highly recommend, disagrees with Tom Wright over the question of the ultimate salvation of national Israel.
Wright—… ( | 7 comments)
What did people in the New Testament have to do to be “saved”? I was prompted to ask this question by this assertion in a comment in the discussion about the sinlessness of Jesus:
Many within the orthodox evangelical world go so far as to say that… ( | 41 comments)
One of the issues raised by the lengthy discussion about the designation of Jesus as a high priest after the order of Melchizedek is that of Jesus’ “sinlessness”. Traditionally we have understood this in what I suppose are general existential or… ( | 35 comments)
One of the arguments put forward by those who wish to find the divinity of Jesus under every stone is that as a “priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 5:6; 6:20; 7:17) Jesus must have been both God and man. This is a misunderstanding… ( | 73 comments)
Recent comments