Book Review: "The New Testament and the People of God" by N. T. Wright

I just finished the longest book I've read since college: The New Testament and the People of God (I'll call it NTPG) by N. T. Wright, one of my favorite theologians and scholars.  Wright is a former Anglican bishop (now retired) who is generally associated with more conservative views on the New Testament, Jesus, and Paul.  About two years ago I decided that I was going to read everything that Wright published.  His writing is balanced, well organized, and highly challenging for me.  NTPG is the 500 page opener of his massive series entitled Christian Origins and the Question of God.  Here's a (hopefully) quick summary:

This book is no easy undertaking.  Wright writes for a academic audience, so NTPG is filled with scholarly sources and terms that he assumes the reader is familiar with.  NTPG is his overarching introduction to the background on the New Testament and how to read it, addressing some of the major historical and theological questions which surround the origins of Christianity.  

In part one, Wright introduces his volume by asking the question "what are we to do with the New Testament?"  He claims that there is a correct way to read the New Testament...that it must be read

"So as to be understood, read within appropriate contexts, within an acoustic which will allow its full overtones to be heard.  It must be read with as little distortion as possible, and with as much sensitivity as possible to its different levels of meaning.  It must be read as stories, and the Story, which it tells can be hard as stories, not as rambling ways of declaring unstoried 'ideas.'  It must be read without the assumption that we already know what it is going to say, and without the arrogance that assumes that 'we'--whichever group that might be--already have ancestral rights over this or that passage, book, or writer."  (6)

 The stated purpose of Wright's first volume, therefore, is to suggest a reading of the New Testament that does justice to these demands.

In Part Two, Wright goes on to criticize contemporary readings of the New Testament which usually fall into the positivist (seeking to find the 'true' or 'real' meaning of the text and assuming it exists), and phenomenalist/deconstructionist (no real meaning actually exists).  Wright instead argues for a critical-realist reading that takes into perspective of the reader, but also assumes that there are texts different from the reader which have meanings both potentially independent of their author and potentially independent of their reader.

Wright then builds a case for an epistemology and how a critical-realist reading of the New Testament that affects three areas: literature, history, and theology.  He argues for a narrative approach in these three areas, and then proceeds to outline the setting and story (from the Babylonian exile to the reconstruction of Judaism following the Jewish War of 70AD) of Jews in second-temple Judaism, showing how in order to understand the NT, we have to understand the mindset of Jews that lived in the first-century in terms of what kind of stories were they telling.  

Part Three is a summary portrait of first-century Judaism in the Roman world.  After a chapter outlining the vast varieties of Jewish diversity, Wright outlines the common points on which most Jews agreed in story, symbol, and praxis (behaviors).  He then goes on to outline specific Jewish beliefs of the time period relating to monotheism, election, covenant, and eschatology.  Jewish monotheism was creational (meaning they believed God created the world), covenantal (meaning they believed that God had entered into covenant with his people), and providential (believed that God would fulfill his promises).  From there, Wright visits the same areas related to early Christians, what they're worldview was, and what the stories they were telling were all about.  He then writes of Israel's hope, or eschatology, claiming that God was working to bring His people Israel out of exile and to restore them to their rightful place and establish His kingdom in the world.  The Jews believed that heaven was not somewhere you go when you die, but rather than God was going to become King once again and they as a people group would be re-established, and that the world would be made right.

Finally Part Four attempts to dissect the early Christian mindset, at once both similar and distinct to first-century Judaism.  Wright believes the Gospel writers all are attempting to write both histories that appeal to commend themselves to the wider Hellenized audience as 'history,' but also as direct attempts to show how in Jesus God had acted decisively in human history and that in Jesus God was establishing His kingdom on earth, albeit in a way Israel didn't expect.  Thus, another major role of the early Christian story-tellers was to show how Jesus was a direct continuation and fulfillment of the story of Israel, the story of how God became King.  It is only when we read the Christian stories including the Gospels and Paul in light of the bigger Israel story can we fully appreciate and understand the early Christian message.

The book was exceptional but daunting, to say the least.  It also uniquely challenged and exposed me to several sources (Jewish apocalyptic and apocraphic writings) that I hadn't read before.  It gave me a lot of context for revisiting the story of Jesus in a new light.  While some of Wright's arguements remain unconvincing for me, I generally agree with his critical-realist approach, as well as his emphasis on 'story' and 'worldview.'

For most this book will be boring and irrelevant, but if you are a history/theology nerd (like me), if you've got a lot of free time, or are a hopeless insomniac (like me), feel free to give this book a shot, but make sure you have a pocket dictionary for biblical studies or something.  I found myself having to look up a lot of words and concepts I've forgotten since college.  Nevertheless, if you're willing to brave Wright's complex case that he lays out, it will enrich your understanding of how to read the New Testament and what its original world was like immensely.

Looking forward to the next volume on Jesus called Jesus and the Victory of God.  

Enterprising Young Men (Part 3): Bromancing.

In the last two posts I've been reflecting on what it means to be a man in a culture that is 'agnostic' about what it expects its young men to be.  Men are adventurers who need a cause.  Men are creators and cultivators who build, construct, and cultivate the world.  To the extent that they are not doing these things, they go through life feeling as if something is missing.

I remember back in 2001 when I was a junior in high school and everyone was reading the book on manhood called Wild at Heart.  Basically the author, John Eldredge, says there are three things that are core to a man's heart: a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to fight for.

It is the beauty, the girl, that infuses the battle with energy, excitement, and having someone to fight for.  Because God is a protector and provider, his sons reflect that image ... to be protectors and providers, and to have other people for whom they can take responsibility.  Undoubtedly this has been twisted, but when a man is fully reflecting who he was created to be, there is something in him that wants to care for, pursue, provide for, and rescue a woman.  That's why written across all the fairy tells and myths and movies of almost every culture throughout all history is the archetype of the hero who saves the girl.  The knight who climbs the tower to save a captive beauty... the trench-coat John Cusacks with boom boxes.

A long time ago someone told me that I should never go to a woman to find your strength.  If you have not found your strength in God as a man, and are looking for a woman to fill that need, you will never be the man you were created to be.  Rather, you should find your strength first, then go and offer it to a woman.  Real men go to women to offer their strength, not to find it.

That's why I feel like so many men use 'romance' as a cheap way of manipulating women's emotions in order to get what they want ... and most times what they want is cheap physical payoff.  They want to feel like a man without ever actually having to be one.  There is no real love, only a game of cheap and fickle romantic feelings.  There are guys that have learned all the tricks... they've learned how to win women emotionally, but they've never actually loved or sacrificed much of anything.

I'm not married yet, and I've tried and failed a few times at 'romance.'  In my immaturity, as with most of us at some point in our lives, I have pursued romance only to realize it was ultimately for selfish ends.  I realized that I needed to redirect my romantic pursuits towards becoming strong and having something to offer a woman...

I've paid off almost all of my debt so that I can someday be a financial blessing to my wife and so that she will never feel financial pressure because she trusts that she has a husband who is skillful at money management.

I decided to lock in to a career path despite my existential wandering thoughts that led me to doubt the path I was on so that I can continue getting better at what I do and provide for the people that God places within my sphere of influence.

I committed to taking care of myself physically so that my wife will feel physically safe and protected and valued.

I work hard at becoming more disciplined so that my wife doesn't have to work hard at respecting her husband.

I cultivate male friendships in my life of guys that can hold me accountable and sharpen me so that my wife knows that she is married to a husband that is committed to always growing and improving.

What I've realized is that the most romantic thing I can do right now is to continue to work hard at becoming a better man ... to continue to love God and serve others, protecting, providing and watching over people around me.  That is true romance.  Real men...whether married or not, serve and lead with self-sacrificial concern for the welfare of others, and prepare themselves doing their best to "present themselves to God as one approved, who does not need to be ashamed" so that they can approach the world and the woman not to find their strength but to offer it.

That's what enterprising young men do...they go to God to find their strength and go to a woman to offer it.

Enterprising Young Men (Part 2): The Dominion Principle

"Let us make man in our image, so that they may rule..." Gen. 1:26

According to the creation story in the Bible, God created men to be rulers over the world.  Ruling isn't dominating, controlling, or dictating.  Ruling is shepherding, serving, leading, and creating.  Ruling has less to do with power than it does with responsibility.

There is something wired in the heart of every man that produces in him a desire to have dominion over something.  When a man is ruling over something: serving and leading and taking responsibility for a dominion, he is reflecting the image of his creator.  God has created men in such a way as to be conduits for His power and glory when they are ruling over his creation in the way He intended them to.

Part of "having dominion" over something is being a creator and cultivator, not a consumer.  As I look around myself at a few of my friends who seem to be in "extended adolescence," I see a few of them that are still consumers of everything.  That's what children do... they consume whatever is given to them.  Part of maturity as a man is ceasing to merely be a consumer and starting something, initiating something, giving back to the world, taking responsibility for others, and leaving a better world in their wake.

Men create homes and cultivate their families.  Men create jobs and cultivate careers.  Men start businesses and cultivate them.  Men pursue women and cultivate romance with them.  Men take responsibility first for themselves, and as they mature for others as well.

Another part of ruling is providing.  A man was created to hunt and provide for people around him.  That means learning and mastering whatever skills he needs to in order to provide for those for whom he is responsible.  A man provides financial stability for his family.  A man manages his finances well and saves money wisely.  A man works hard at his job and is competitive in business because he is providing for his family.  Eve was made from the rib of Adam, and it always requires a sacrifice on the part of a man to provide for a woman.

To the extent that a man isn't 'ruling' in the way he was supposed to, in love, service, and responsibility, he is not reflecting the image of his Creator, and there is a feeling within himself and among those around him that something is missing in this man's life.

Unfortunately many men go through life indefinitely being consumers rather than creators and cultivators, with wives and girlfriends that enable them by doing everything for them.

We were wired for leadership, which doesn't mean power but rather responsibility and service.  That is what it means to be a man that reflects the glory of his Creator ... a man who rules... who creates and cultivates, and who provides for other people, sacrificing on behalf of others and leaving a better world in his wake.

Enterprising Young Men (Part 1): Having a Cause.

So I've been meditating on what it means to be a man.  I tend to agree with William Bennet, in saying that today's culture is agnostic about what it expects men to be.  We don't have a clearly defined definition of 'what makes a man.'  So for the next few posts I'm going to offer a few personal reflections on what it means to be a man.  I've read almost every book out there on manhood and I probably don't have anything new to say.  So here's the first thing of what it means to be a man:

Men were created to explore.  In Genesis 1, when God created man, "You may freely eat of any tree in the garden."   God's first command to the man he had made was to eat freely.  Whenever I read this I always wonder how many trees there were in the Garden, how large the garden was, and what this might have meant to Adam.  If it meant anything,  I think it meant that God wanted him to explore.  Certainly there was a vast variety of fruits that he could have eaten.  So, at the very outset of the creation story, we find a man exploring looking for food.  How fitting!  Whenever I have a late night craving for food, I get in my car and go driving looking for someplace that is open.  Late night exploring for food.  It is fascinating to me that the first command in the Bible is to explore and freely eat.

Men were created to explore, to discover, and to embark.  We were wired for risk, excitement, new discoveries, and ruggedness.  There is something innate in all men, everywhere, that desires to be journeying or questing to discover something.  Risk is written on the soul of all men.  To the extent that a man is not risking is the extent that he is not being a man.  We were designed for enterprise...to boldly go where no one has gone before... that's part of what it means to be a man.

The reason we were designed for enterprise, is that within the heart of every man is a desire, a longing, even a hunger to be a part of a cause.  Sure, relationships are always important because 'it is not good for a man to be alone,' but written into the nature of masculinity is the desire to have something to live for.  It is the cause that compels a man.  At the core of this, in practical language, is that which is innate in us as men, to want something.  


Desire is core to masculinity.  Wanting something.  Pursuing something.  Chasing something.  Working towards something ... even if that something is an unknown new discovery, it is the journey that infuses our lives with meaning.

I think it is difficult for women to understand something... that if a man is not being driven or possessed by an all-consuming, over-arching adventure or cause, there is something in him that will forever feel incomplete.

We must explore.  We must pursue.  We must conquer.  We must have our strength tested.  It is what compels us.

We are enterprisers.

The Call: To Party.

I love the Gospel of Luke, not just because it has the same name as me, but for a couple of reasons.  

Only Luke contains what is for me the most emotionally moving passage in the entire Bible: the parable of the prodigal son.

Only Luke contains the story of hated Zacchaeus to whom salvation came when he climbed the tree in order to see Jesus more clearly.

Only Luke repeatedly shows hated Samaritans in a positive light and loved by God.

It is Luke who highlights loving portraits of women who came into contact with Jesus, whether it is Elizabeth, Anna, the widow of Nain, Susanna, Joanna, the wife of Chuza, or the weeping daughters of Jerusalem.

Luke is the great Gospel of the Friendless... the Gospel of the Outcasts... he paints a picture of Jesus as a Savior for all people, accessible to any who will approach him in faith.

One time Jesus called a tax collector named Levi to follow him.  Luke tells us that the first thing Levi did was throw a party and invite all of his sinful friends.  The religious leaders took issue that Jesus would attend such a party and asked him: "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"

Jesus response: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."  Later on in his Gospel, Luke records Jesus saying something similar: "for the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost."

Levi, Matthew, a hated sinner, found grace and transformation in Jesus.  He was so excited he wanted to bring all his friends with him, so he had a party.

Sadly, far too many churches today are like the religious leaders: "why are you eating with sinners?"

Far to many churches focus on the healthy.  Far too many youth pastors focus on the 'leaders,' the kids who already have great parents and have everything together.  Far too many churches are obsessed with maintaining and pleasing the already-believing members.

The biggest sign of a healthy church is if it is filled with unhealthy people.  Brennan Manning once wrote that the church isn't supposed to be a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.  May we always be a church who seeks those who are far from God.  May we be a Church that hosts parties for sinners?

The Church is a community with a Gospel, a cure to the deepest malady of all: the sickness of sin.  The Church must hold the believe that no one is beyond the grace of God.

It is our call to call the Levi's of society, to pursue those hated by others and far from God, and to bid prodigals to come home to a loving Father.  It is our call to stand on the porch and wait for them with eyes fixed on the horizon.

It is our call to have parties when they return home...

"I have come to call sinners to repentance..." Luke 5:32

The Call: To Fish

The morning mist rolled over the hills surrounding the lake as a bearded man, bundled for the morning cold, trudged wearily out of shallows and onto the shore.  A roped fishing net hung over his shoulder, dripping wet from the waves and empty: a reminder of all the work left undone.  He knew from years of this trade that no fish meant no dinner, and no income.  He looked at his younger brother, and the two teenage boys he was teaching how to fish, whose nets were also empty despite being on the water all night... the morning light spelled exhaustion on his face as well.

The two brothers couldn't help but notice some distance away that a small crowd had gathered around something of interest.  Upon a closer glance, they noticed that it was a man.  Sighing heavily, the tired fisherman was reminded of how tired he was of the rabbis and all their talk, or maybe it was just his frustration from the lack of fish ... let the Rabbis teach, he thought, while the rest of us survive...  Undoubtedly this was another Rabbi, sharing his teaching with whoever would listen.  He turned his attention back to the more important task at hand and continued cleaning his empty net.

Not a few moments passed when he noticed that the Rabbi was walking towards him and the small crowd was following.  The tired fisherman nodded at his brother, alerting him to be prepared for a religious discourse on why they hadn't caught any fish.

But to the brothers' astonishment, the Rabbi walked right past them, picked up one of the uncleaned nets, and hoisted it back into the boat.

"You're not done fishing..."

"Rabbi, respectfully, we have fished all night and caught nothing."

"Throw out your nets one more time."

Normally the man wouldn't listen to the absurd request, but he was a devout man and his respect for the Law was unwavering.  And there was something about this Rabbi that was .... arresting ... maybe it was something about his penetrating gaze, the resolute look in his eyes that was at once both exceedingly ferocious and tenderly compassionate.

"Alright Teacher, we'll try one last time."

Within a few minutes they were back out on the water.  The moment they dropped their nets to drag behind the boat they began to fill with schools of tilapia.  The weight of the net was so great that the boat could barely carry it.

As the brothers drug the bursting nets onto the shore and spilled hundreds of squirming mackerel onto the rocky sand the fisherman's gaze met the Rabbi's...

... and then he spoke the words that would change everything ... words he would never forget ...

"From now on you will fish for the souls of people..."

It was as if a curtain that had been over his eyes had been pulled down for the first time and within him welled up a peculiar feeling that had some mixture of peace and purpose.

Almost suddenly the fish they had caught didn't seem quite so important anymore...

The Call: To Come and See.

At the beginning of the story of Jesus he is calling disciples, young men who would go on to follow him for the next few years as apprentices and learners.  One of them was named Philip.  According to the Gospel of John, as Jesus is leaving Galilee he asks Philip to follow him.  They must've had an unrecorded previous encounter, because Philip goes and tells his friend Nathanael "we have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Joseph!"

Nathanael's response is the same response that you or I would have if someone came up to us claiming to have been sent by God... it is one of skepticism: "Nazareth?  Can anything good come from there?"

I think what I love most about this short passage in the Bible is Philip's response to Nathanael's skepticism. He doesn't argue with Philip.  He doesn't pull out a bullet point list of why he believes that there is something special about the man from Nazareth.  He makes no attempt to convince Nathanael of what he doesn't believe, aside from one simple invitation...

"Come and see," Philip said.

This one line contains the entire apologetic of the Christian faith.  I'm sure it could be said that very few people in the history of Christianity have been won over to Christ by argument or debate.  Very few have been convinced through logic of the opposite of what they had already chosen to believe.  But many in my experience have been won over through an invitation to 'come and see,' an encounter with a simple story: a story of a man sent by God who died on a cross and came back from the dead.  It is in that simple presentation that millions are won over, because there is power in the story, and when men and women allow themselves to come face to face with Jesus in the Gospels, they cannot help but walk away changed.

The end of this story is equally astounding.  Jesus sees into Nathanael's heart.  "Here is a true Israelite in whom there is nothing false."  Nathanael is bewildered "how do you know me?"

"I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you."  Jesus says.  Nathanael's reply "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!"

This verse has always confused me.  What was so magical about seeing someone sitting under a tree that would incite such a response?  One view from scholars on this verse is that the fig tree was where Nathanael would go to be alone and pray ... he was a Jew, and thus many of his prayers would be that the Chosen One discussed in the Jewish Scriptures would be revealed.  It was a place where he was completely alone with God.

But here was something beautifully mysterious and bewildering... the man from Nazareth knew about his secret prayers.  Who was this man, that could hear his inmost thoughts, desires, and aspirations?  Who was this man who could see immediately into the deepest places of his heart and diagnose its true condition?  Who was this man who, according to William Barclay, "could translate the inarticulate sighs of his soul"?  

That is what a person finds in an encounter with Christ ... a man and a God who knows you completely, even the thoughts and the attitudes which you have never spoken to anyone, who not only sees you, but sees into you, whose glory is incomprehensible, whose grace is arresting, and whose gaze is penetrating.

Come and see...

Valentines Day Reflection #4: Romance, the Trinity, Dancing, and Pooping Your Pants.

According to Christian theology God is both three and one.  The Catholics invented a word to describe this threeness but oneness: the word "trinity."  Its not a word you can find in the Bible, but there is evidence of it all over the place.

The cool thing about "trinity" is that it means that God, at a fundamental level, is a community.  At the center of God's nature is a relationship... a perfect union of unique three, Father, Son, and Spirit, in perfect unity as one.

In fact, the early Church Fathers used the greek word "perichoresis" to describe the Trinity coming from two greek words: "peri" meaning around, and "choreuo" which is where we get our English word "choreography."

C. S. Lewis called it a "divine dance."

According to Genesis 1, the first book of the Bible, human beings were created 'in the image of God.'  That means we too, at the core, are relational.  It means that every human being, created in the image of God, has a deep desire to exist within a network of significant relationships.  All of us have a deep longing for community...its imprinted on our nature.  We all have a desire to be intimate with other human beings, to share, to communicate, to serve, to connect, to collaborate, to love, .... to dance ....

That being said, there is something of romance in all of us, even those who never find it the way this world defines it.  And when we pursue romance and true intimacy in the way our Creator intended, in a strange and mystical way we participate in the divine dance.

The first time I ever slow-danced with a girl I pooped my pants.  Literally.  I sharted mid-dance to the song "All My Life" by K-C and JoJo at the eighth grade formal.  Chocolate soup.  Luckily I escaped before anyone noticed and walked home, changed clothes, and came back.  That's already TMI, and there's way more to that hilarious story.

Sometimes we don't dance because of the skid-marks that the last attempt has left us with.  In other words, we don't get intimate with people because the last time we did it hurt and we don't want to hurt again.  When you have a broken hand, no matter whose hand you shake its going to hurt.  Maybe you have embarrassed yourself, dance awkwardly, or step on enough toes to the point where you are content to stay sitting on the outskirts of the dancefloor drinking cheap punch and grocery store cookies next to the parent-chaperones, and never again take a shot at vulnerability and true intimacy.

And beyond mere romance, maybe you are so afraid of being real with any other human being that you have isolated yourself from your friends, and even when you are surrounded by throngs of co-workers, acquaintances, and roommates, you are completely alone.  You don't want to dance, you don't want to participate in intimate friendships, let alone romantic situations.

If that's you there is just one more thing I want to say: You were created to participate in the Divine Dance ... the community and connection that comes from having significant relationships with other people and with God.  Finish your punch, throw away the last bite of your cookie, run home and change your khaki pants, pop in a stick of gum, get another spray of cologne, and do what you were created to do: join the Dance of God that's been going on since before the beginning of time: a dance that joins all things in connection, community, and commonality.

All of creation is about a relational connection with each other and with a Creator.  Will you give intimacy a try?  Will you give vulnerability a try?  Will you give...gulp... romance a try? Even if it is awkward, straight-armed, three-feet-away-from-each-other, junior high dancing, will you risk it?

Perichoresis.  Let's dance.

"The world we live in is the dance of the Creator."  Michael Jackson