glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- why was Jesus born? Below is an article that appeared the other day in The Grand Rapids Press newspaper. Carol showed me the newspaper article and read to her the from the article which repeats some of what N. T. Wright said in his lecture "Jesus and kingdom". "More than providing a moral example or a means of salvation, Wright argued, Jesus� earthly life was nothing less than the reestablishment of God�s kingship over the earth. Unlike the empire of Caesar or the kingdom of Herod, Wright said, God�s kingdom was not established through force. �When God wants to take his power and reign, putting the world to rights as he�d always promised, he doesn�t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken-hearted, the crushed in spirit.� The Christian�s central purpose, therefore, is not to become personally saved but instead to be laborers in the construction of that kingdom until God finally completes it. And the deepest purpose of the Christian church is not to pursue converts but to pursue justice." N. T. Wright I told Carol after reading these words by N. T. Wright there are Christians who would disagree with Wright on what it means to preach the Gospel. I think of some orthodox Calvinist who would find this statement by Wright offensive "the Christian's central purpose, therefore, is not to become personally saved but instead to be laborers in the construction of that kingdom until God finally completes it." What I am driving at is that among the Calvinist that I have been around with for many years when a preacher sets forth the Gospel it is not preaching that the kingdom of God has come, but that the Lord Jesus has come to save sinners. These Calvinists preach that a sinner must repent and believe the gospel of salvation. In these Calvinistic churches one hears sermons on what is true faith and what is false faith. One hears sermons on true repentance and false repentance. One hears in these Calvinistic churches sermons on the 17th century English Puritan confession of faith the Westminster Standards. The central message of these Calvinist churches is that the Lord Jesus came to save sinners and not bring in the kingdom of God. The other day I was reading the book "Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? A Narrative Approach To The Problem Of Pauline Christianity" by J. R. Daniel Kirk. Kirk is agreement with N. T. Wright and quotes from Wright's books in his book. I will quote from Kirk's book- "For many of us who grew up in churched worlds of Sunday school, youth groups, retreats, and summer camps, the gospel narratives into which we were enculturated focused on what we might call individualistic and ecapist visions of the work of Jesus. In these depictions, the gospel is about my soul's salvation, offering me a chance to get to heaven when I die. And for many of us, the primary promoter of such a vision was none other than the apostle Paul. Schooled on the Romans Road to Salvation, we walk from "all sinned" (That's me!), to "the wages of sin is death" (I've got a problem!), to "while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (God's done something about my problem!), to "confess Jesus is Lord and believe he's been raised and you will be saved" (Yes! I get to go to heaven when I die if I only make Jesus Lord of my heart!). While such a telling communicates some important facets of the gospel story, many of us have found that Scripture itself generates questions that destabilize such me-centered, escapist systems." pg. 31,32 Daniel Kirk So what does Kirk believe should be the central message of the Gospel if not to call sinners to repentance and faith In Christ Jesus? Kirk believes the Gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ has inaugurated the dominion of God or the kingdom of God. To quote Kirk on page 32 "By the end, I hope to have shown that Jesus's enacting of the dominion of God and Paul's vision of new creation in the resurrected Christ are complementary visions of a holistically restored cosmos. This is the gospel we sing about as we take the words "Joy to the World" to our lips: "He comes to make his blessings flow/far as the curse is found."" Daniel Kirk. For myself I wonder what has happened to the Christian belief of a personal Savior of sinners? I find it comforting as a Christian that the Lord Jesus died on the Cross to save me from sin. Where is the idea of a Savior who loved me and died for me on a Cross in N. T. Wright and Daniel Kirk? N.T. Wright's lecture on "Jesus and kingdom" concludes Calvin College January Series. N.T. Wright is an Anglican theologian and author of popular and scholarly books and Christian theology and practice including "Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church," "Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters" and the projected six-volume work "Christian Origins and the Question of God." He serves as chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. N.T. Wright first encountered �the problem� as a teenager. He and his friends were tasked with laying out the Christian doctrines about Jesus for a Sunday school class. Why was Jesus born? Why did Jesus die? Why was he resurrected? �I drew the short straw,� Wright said: �Why did Jesus live?� Former Bishop of Durham, current chair of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews and author of over 50 books on Christian theology and practice, Wright delivered the final lecture in Calvin College�s 25th annual January Series on Tuesday, Jan. 24. Wright�s lecture addressed themes from his forthcoming book, "How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels." This was Wright�s fourth visit to Calvin. As Wright sees it, the problem of misunderstanding Jesus� life is not limited to one sect or denomination. Orthodox theologians focus on Jesus� divinity to combat liberal theology, and liberal theologians focus on Jesus� humanity to combat orthodox theology; meanwhile, neither grasp the larger narrative. The creeds themselves fail to address it. More than providing a moral example or a means of salvation, Wright argued, Jesus� earthly life was nothing less than the reestablishment of God�s kingship over the earth. Unlike the empire of Caesar or the kingdom of Herod, Wright said, God�s kingdom was not established through force. �When God wants to take his power and reign, putting the world to rights as he�d always promised, he doesn�t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken-hearted, the crushed in spirit.� The Christian�s central purpose, therefore, is not to become personally saved but instead to be laborers in the construction of that kingdom until God finally completes it. And the deepest purpose of the Christian church is not to pursue converts but to pursue justice. These claims build on Wright�s work in "Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church" with which he sought to correct Christian notions about heaven. �Heaven is important, but it�s not the end of the world,� Wright quipped during his morning session of interviews and Q&As. Contrary to much Christian teaching since the Middle Ages, Wright reaffirms what he sees as the traditional Christian vision of eternity: the earth will not be destroyed but renewed when God�s kingdom fully arrives. In describing the call of the Christian, Wright used the metaphor of a medieval stonemason shaping stones for Durham cathedral, where he served as bishop until 2010. Though the mason doesn�t know what the cathedral will look like, Wright said, he trusts the architect, believing that one day he will look up and find it in its place in the great west front. In spite of the weightiness of his topics, Wright�s visit was spiked with humor, as when joked about his home county of Northumberland in the United Kingdom where ros� wine means white wine poured into red, or when he told his January Series audience a story about an American customs agent who asked him to recite John 3:16. �Thinking quickly on my feet, I said, �Houtōs gar ēgapēsen ho Theos ton kosmon.� Wright also didn�t shy away from challenging his Calvin audience, as when he said that �swathes of evangelicals are more anxious to protect a theory of scripture than to hear what the scripture actually says.� And at a Q&A with students in which he discussed current beliefs about the afterlife, Wright shared his opinions about dispensationalism, a Christian ideology at odds with much of his own project, calling it �extremely worrying� that what began as the literature of the oppressed is now in the United States being wielded by the powerful. �That�s your problem, not mine,� he said. http://therapidian.org/nt-wrights-lecture-jesus-and-kingdom-concludes-calvin-january-series 11:16 a.m. - 2012-01-30 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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