This is a great book, even for someone like me that is not in the ministry, but is rather an accountant by trade. Much of my life, I've tried to understand Paul (and Jesus) as Jews. Too many times, I see people try to interpret Jesus or Paul from a very Western point of view; but my contention is that Jesus and Paul were 2nd Temple Jews and thought and acted like 2nd Temple Jews. NT Wright helps to understand Paul in his world. This is one of my favorite books ever.

N.T. Wright seems much more Eastern Catholic or Eastern Orthodox (probably the latter, since he rejects the papacy) than he is Whatever Anglicanism Is This Week. He really has been very effective in helping Protestants think along more Catholic/Orthodox lines. Above all, he is a great biblical scholar who has helped Christians of all traditions to plug into their biblical Hebrew roots.

@ComradeAgopian

9 жыл бұрын

We do not ' reject the papacy . '

@billybagbom

9 жыл бұрын

ComradeAgopian Of course not (assuming you are Eastern Orthodox), anymore than we "reject" the hierarchies of the canonical Orthodox communion. Poor choice of words on my part. The history behind Wright's Anglican communion, however, would seem to almost justify the application of the word "reject" (with regard to the papacy). But not quite. So I beg your pardon.

@dorasmith7875

3 жыл бұрын

Well that would depend on which Janus face is displaying on NT Wright this moment.

@dorasmith7875

3 жыл бұрын

How so? I think that would surprise him! He considers himself part of the high Reformed tradition. Catholics have been slowly adopting especially constructive thinking of other churches and traditions. Especially when it comes to St. Paul.

Thank you for Sharing !

WOW

The link to the discussion guide is no longer active

@dorasmith7875

3 жыл бұрын

You mean we were supposed to have read a guide that told us how we were supposed to perceive this interview?

I think we need to first of all keep in mind that NT Wright is an excellent historian, but a very troubled man, and he's further a high eschelon bishop in the Church of England. Like most of that ilk the man believes that sexuality is a very evil and suspicious gift from God. He misses the need of 16th century + Christians to know if and how they are saved, because he himself lacks the moral character to even care. For his corrupt Etonian aristocratic ilk, all of life is about community. Truth and morality don't exist and don't matter. Conscience doesnt' matter. To the Church of England, married gay clergy need to tell their bishops they are not sleeping with their spouses. We all need to stop randomely substituting ideas into sentences and listen to the confused views of our elders and betters. This is pure and simple corruption. People who don't even know what a conscience is, so how could they worry about whether they are saved. It's all about the unity of the group as a whole. If our scriptures don't speak to how or if we are saved on a personal level, they wouldn't meet our needs. The wonder is not that Augustine began to worry about the matter in the 4th century, but how it took so long. Even though ancient people thought more collectively than individualistically than we do now, the scrupulous among them must have concerned themselves about how to be saved. Indeed the Gospels take up the matter. Perhaps the matter came to the fore of peoples' minds as Christianity moved away from a traditional Jewish outlook with its solutions to the problem of sin that satisfied its people in their time. NT Wright doesn't see it as legitimate for Luther or Augustine to have troubled themselves about a matter that has never troubled HIM. Indeed, Wright's strength of a historian comes partly from his failure to believe very deeply in anything. He presents the same strong and convincing evidence that the Christ story is mythology that Borg does, and he presents it more clearly. He also tells us that members of the historical Jesus movement are "right". If he genuinely believed his own pronounced theological conservatism strong far right worldview it would get in his way. He is just throwing ideas around like aristocratic English professors at tea. Which is pretty much what is done at England's upper crust universities. But I suspect modern Lutheran theologians are arguing that Luther may have had tunnel vision but he did not read Romans wrongly. If nations are saved through grace and by faith, how are individual people not saved through faith and by grace. Especiallyt after Paul's high fallutin antics about what happens to people and sin once they believe in the Gospel and then are baptized. Lutherans are much bigger than any other branch of Christianity I have run into on living the life of the Spirit once one is baptized; in far more genuine and down to earth ways than any of the others. I think he's missing A LOT.