Here I want to try and answer some questions sent to me by someone who grew up in the “reformed, fundamental, SBC” tradition but has spent the best part of the last year deconstructing his faith “down to nothing.” He has been reading the work of historically-minded interpreters like Pete Enns and NT Wright, but has been having a hard time finding a way forward. His faith is sinking. “I currently don’t see any reason to be a Christian or to continue in the Christian way.”

My initial response was that the faith questions are much harder to answer than the historical-exegetical questions, and—goodness knows!—the historical-exegetical questions are hard enough. But interpretation is a major part of the problem, and I think it is important to recognise that it has implications for faith, both positively and negatively.

Certain core emphases or tenets have emerged over the years as I have dug myself deeper and deeper into the pit of the narrative-historical perspective:

1. The key to understanding the Bible is history, not theology.
2. What holds the whole thing together is the historical existence of a people that tells a story about itself and its relation to the creator God over long periods of time; and in a sense we are still telling that story.
3. The “message” of the New Testament is as Jewish as the message of the Old Testament….

In the opening paragraph of his book Jewish Messianism and the Cult of Christ (SCM Press, 1998) William Horbury outlines a basic model for understanding the relation of the Old Testament to history. His leading contention is that the Old Testament “forms the backbone of any study of messianism in the Second-Temple period,” so it is specifically the relation of the Old Testament to that period of Jewish history which encompasses the New Testament narrative that is under consideration.

The model is valuable because it highlights the importance of historical context both for the production and for the interpretation of the Jewish scriptures. It consists in two stages.

At the Communitas Family Reunion in Malaga last week my friend Wes led a brilliant series of teaching conversations on Daniel 9. In my view it was a model of narrative-historical pedagogy. The historical context was critically appraised and kept in focus, and precisely for that reason our group of mission-minded folk was able to find in it the draft of a powerful story that may give credibility, resilience, and orientation to mission today. What struck me especially—though I’m not the first person to notice it—was that the climax to Daniel’s prayer prefigures the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples.

A post by the Arminian theologian Roger Olson this week outlining “9.5 Theses about Evangelical Christianity” serves to illustrate a number of the points that I made with my little diagram about theology and history. It’s a quick read. Here’s my take on it.

It’s summer in the northern hemisphere, and there’s not much happening, so I was doodling and came up with a little diagram to show the difference between traditional evangelical thought and the approach that I take on this blog. For many readers it will be familiar, but if you’re new here, it may blow your mind. Or maybe not.

In this rather long post I want to address some questions put to me about the general plausibility of my reading of the parousia texts as prophecies regarding two historical developments—the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the armies of pagan Rome and the overthrow of pagan Rome through the witness of the churches to the lordship of Jesus. There are undoubtedly things that I have overlooked, but these are the texts and questions that immediately stand out.