I want to look at a couple of related questions about Romans, from a couple of unrelated sources. First, Jo is not convinced that the string or catena of Old Testament quotations in Romans 3:10-18 is directed exclusively against the Jews, as I maintain in The Future of the People of God. My contention is that Paul’s argument throughout this section is premised on the prospect of a temporal and realistic wrath against the Jew (cf. Rom. 2:1-10) and is to a large extent a reconstruction of his disputes with the synagogue communities of his mission field. This puts constraints on how we interpret the “theological” content of the letter. Romans is not a piece of universal or standardised “Christian” theologising.

The witness of scripture is not primarily to the personal relevance of God but to the political relevance of God. It has to do with the rule or kingdom of God in the world. Witness operates at large scale national-civilisational levels of narrative meaning sandwiched between cosmological-geological narratives and local-personal narratives. There we have our multi-storied theological universe.

The witness of the church today suffers, I think, from the fact that it has inverted this narrative structure. Theological priority is given overwhelmingly to the story of the individual who finds faith and lives it out in the context of a local church community. The cosmological story, at the outer reaches of the narrative spectrum, explains why this is important. We are all implicated in the disobedience of Adam and are in need of a redemption from outside—a Son sent into the world to die for the sins of humanity. But history is only the context in which people live out their faith in God.

Biblical faith is almost always forward-looking. It is as much about what may or may not happen in the future as it is about the knowledge and experience of the God of Israel in the here and now. It is, therefore, almost always either fearful or hopeful.

Abraham hoped that he would become the father of many nations (cf. Rom. 14:18). Moses led the people out of Egypt in hope of reaching the land promised to their fathers, though many feared—for good reason—that they would never get there. Israel hoped to have a powerful king, who would unite them, judge them, and lead them out to fight against their enemies (1 Sam. 8:19-20). As religious, moral, and political leadership failed, they began to fear the wrath of God. The exilic community hoped for a return to the land and restoration of Jerusalem, for a renewal of priesthood and kingship.

John Morehead had this to say about my “Is there only one way to heaven?” post, and I want to explore some thoughts in response to it:

…as you developed this piece, for me it lost theological momentum when you got to the section on how the early parts of the post connect to the question of Jesus and other religions. I do think that good arguments can be made for God revealing himself (the “God-consciousness” you refer to) among other religions. At the same time, I wonder how this accounts for Israel as a light to the nations, the proclamation of the one true God in their midst, and the “scandal of particularity” in Christianity.

Tim Challies wrote a short piece a couple of days back explaining why there is only one way to heaven. I had originally thought to discuss his argument in the recent post on Progressive Christianity under the final statement: “It does not claim that Christianity is the only valid or viable way to connect to God.” But there wasn’t space.

I’ve just listened to my friend Michael Cooper talking on the Ephesiology Podcast about the events in Washington last week and the lamentable state of American evangelicalism. He and his co-hosts have some sensible things to say, but I found myself in disagreement over one matter. I think they overstated the contradiction between the behaviour of the Capitol Hill mob and the methodology of the early Jesus movement—indeed, of Jesus himself.