As you all know, I don’t normally blog on Saturday or Sundays. However, I found out that one of the blog posts I wrote last week got tucked underneath another post. This is because I wrote two posts in one day – big mistake. The net result is that many of you never saw it.
So I’m reposting it today so that all of you who subscribe will see it.
If there’s one speaker you don’t want to miss if you can help it, it’s N.T. Wright. I just love the guy. Both as a friend and for his work.
This summer, N.T. Wright will be speaking at a conference on Paul’s letter to the Galatians & Christian Theology at St Andrews in Scotland.
The dates are July 10-13th.
Click here for all the details.
Wright is well worth hearing. As most of you know, I highly respect him.
If you haven’t yet read the interview I did with N.T. Wright recently, click here to read it.
Hi Frank
I would be interested to know what your most reccomended work of N.T. Wright is?
I do struggle to understand why you would be endorsing the work of an anglican bishop considering your views on hierarchical institutional church structures and ordination?
I personally struggle with his view on the biblical creation story.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a creation-science fanatic, but I get dis-heartened when people ignorantly choose to compromise biblical authority in favour of man’s empty philosophy.
You might think that I am being judgemental, but my spiritual instincts always tell me they are some kind of “soothsayer”.
Please tell me if and how I am way off base here, because It’s an area I always struggle with.
Just a for instance… A lot of conservative christians will say drinking alcohol is out. In order to justify this, they will twist the scriptures to say for example that Jesus turned the water into “unfermented grape juice” at the wedding in Cana; when a blind man and his dog can see that is not what the scriptures say.
I fail to see the difference between this and saying that the creative days were not real “days”, when every Hebrew scholar knows that this is what the writer of Genesis intended?
Peter. Two things:
1) If someone struggles with my endorsement of the scholarly work of an Anglican bishop (though he’s not longer a bishop) just because I don’t endorse hierarchy in the church, they don’t understand my ministry. I have much more in common with N.T. Wright’s theology on Jesus, the Kingdom, and Paul’s theology than I do with that of most fundamentalist and “house church” people. See my recommended academic books at http://www.ptmin.org/academic – I made this point in my talk at George Fox Seminary. As far as the *theology* of high church traditions, I agree with much of it because it shows depth in understanding community, the nature of the Triune God, the communion in the Godhead, being “partakes of the divine nature” (the Eastern emphasis), etc. I just believe that if you follow that theology to its logical conclusion, you’ll come out with a low church *practice.* Again, I stated this in my talk at George Fox which is on the podcast.
2) I think there may be some misinformation here. Wright’s expertise or emphasis is NOT on the creation story. He accepts it readily but also views Genesis 1 and 2 in literary style. This is shared by many evangelical, Bible-believing scholars. One can hold to the literary view and believe that Adam was a historical figure and also reject Darwinian theory. But again, this is a side-track because it’s not what Wright is noted for. The truth is, Wright is one of the fiercest defenders and apologists for the inspiration, reliability, and authority of Scripture in our time. As I pointed out in my interview with him, he’s a modern-day F.F. Bruce. See his “The Scripture and the Authority of God” where he goes into this. It’s on my top book picks for 2011 that I posted last week.
Finally, one can never understand me or my ministry by reading a few of my books that deal with church practice. They must also read the more important “Revise Us Again,” “From Eternity to Here,” “Jesus Manifesto,” and “Epic Jesus.”
Hi Frank, nice to see you on a Sunday! I did share the post last week, but I don’t mind sharing again.
The fact (unfortunately) is that most people don’t take the effort to share/like posts.