Engaging and disagreeing with people smarter than me.

So I am going to a lecture by N.T. Wright tonight and needless to say I am very excited. He is currently at my Seminary teaching some doctoral classes. N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and he is one of the foremost New Testament Scholars. He’s a huge voice in Church at large and a positive one most of the time. His current most popular book is Surprised by Hope where he has a lot of engaging and helpful insights into the reality of Heaven and Hell. Increasingly I am growing more cautious and critical of what I accept and believe. (A positive thing I think) What I mean to say is, that a few years ago if I were to pick up a Christian book I would have most likely assumed that what was written was truth and thus biblically sound. Maybe this was just ignorance or the lacking of knowledge or skill to dissent with, what I consider in some cases, superior minds. I am not saying I would have swallowed any normal Jacks writings but those of legitimate scholarly and pastoral writers.

I guess it hit me last year when I was in Cambridge and I was rereading Mere Christianity for a course on Lewis. A little background, I have loved C.S. Lewis from before I could read! Once I rediscovered his writings in high school I realized he wrote more than stories about Lions and mice. I pretty much spent two years of high school reading Lewis’ apologetic and theological works. The thought had honestly never occurred to me that I could disagree with what he was writing. The last year while reading Mere Christianity (a beautiful book – that came out of a serious of broadcasts from WWII) I realized that I didn’t agree with a lot of what Lewis was writing. I guess had two great shocks that day while sitting in a coffee shop. The first was that it was ok for me to disagree with somebody, no matter how much I respected them. The second shock was that I was capable of dissenting on a scholarly level. It was scary and encouraging to realize that I was capable to be and have my own mind. I guess that is when I started taking my potential as a student and teacher (in a broad sense).

Anyway I say all this because I am really excited about going to see N.T. Wright tonight. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him; I mean I have been using some of his books for recourses for my earliest writings in undergrad. It’s really refreshing to use resources of people who aren’t dead sometimes. The point of this entry is to state that I know I may not agree with everything Wright says tonight but I thank God that he has granted me the ability to go tonight and have an open mind and take in what he says and weigh it against the knowledge that has been granted to me from above (not in a Gnostic sense but a Holy Spirit/Biblical sense).

John Piper, as the three people who read this blog know, is somewhat my pastoral hero! Not many people have the chops/bravery to write like he does, let alone to write a book disagreeing with someone as notable as N.T. Wright. Piper wrote a book called, The future of Justification: a response to N.T. Wright. Piper mostly takes issue with Wright’s stance on Justification. In an interview Piper responded with this:

"N.T. Wright says things like we will be justified in the last day on the basis of the whole life lived. Now he may not mean what that sounds like it means. But it sounds like it means, and will be taken to mean, what Roman Catholicism really says it means, namely that justification is our becoming righteous ourselves, so that our acts of obedience are part of the ground by which God accepts us.

What I want to say is that at the moment when we put our childlike faith in Jesus Christ, he became our punishment and our obedience. That is, at that moment he became the obedience required for God to be totally for us.
Therefore, the very thing that N.T. Wright and others are wanting to accomplish, namely an engaged, bold, loving, sacrificial, mission-oriented church will cease to be that, just like the mainline churches have ceased to be dynamic forces in the world, because they threw away the essence of certain crucial doctrines. You don’t see it now, because N.T. Wright himself is such a good embodiment of engagement, but I’m saying that some of the things he says have the trajectory that if they’re followed out, are going to in fact undermine the very thing he wants to accomplish, namely, a sacrificially loving church.

So that’s what’s at stake. It’s a huge issue for me, and I hope the book will have some influence on him to get him to say some things better and more clearly. And I hope it will have influence on those who are reading him, so that they are not as inclined to follow his way of thinking about justification as they might have been."

I am excited about tonight!

rough draft of my intro and thesis for NT1

THE IMPOSSIBILITY FOR MAN, THE POSSIBILITY FOR GOD: THE SALVATION OF A RICH MAN: LUKE 19:1-10


1He entered Jericho and was passing through it. 2A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. 5When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today."6So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.7All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." 8Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much." 9Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." (NRSV)

Introduction

When one reads through the Gospel of Luke it is easy to see that the Third Evangelist is greatly concerned with the outcasts and marginalized of his community. It becomes evident, in his writings to Theophilus, his goal is to present a Jesus who is interested in the inclusion and salvation of all. This is made clear in the narrative of Zacchaeus. As we read through Luke 19:1-10 it is hard not to be drawn to similar accounts found in the Gospel of Luke, especially within the preceding chapter. In chapter eighteen we are introduced to similar characters such as a widow, a toll collector, a child, and a blind beggar. We find the most striking similarities in the account of the rich ruler (18:18-30). In the narrative of the rich ruler we are introduced to a man who has kept the law from his youth and is seeking eternal life from Jesus. Jesus goes on to instruct the rich ruler to sell all of his possessions and give to the poor and then he will have treasure in heaven. This was too much to ask of the rich ruler and he went away sad. Jesus then explains how difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom:

Jesus looking at him said, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Those who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?" But he said, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."

Though these two accounts are parallel in many ways they drastically differ in result. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that the Third Evangelist used the account of Zacchaeus to substantiate Jesus’ statement, in 18:27, "What is impossible with men is possible with God." In this unique account of Zacchaeus in Luke we are shown a beautiful example of present salvation in the life of a rich man. Let us keep in mind the radical grace of God as we dig deeper into the narrative of Zacchaeus.





Thoughts....?

sorry I wanted the bonus entry...

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A new look

Tough day today. Hope is still alive though. The tomb is empty and Jesus is alive sitting at the right hand of the Father. 41 days till Easter. In this Lent season let us remember to hold everything we have with open hands. Our life is not our own.

lamentations 3:31-33
For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

happy valentines day.

Alive -

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