N.T Wrights Christian Origin Series Intro and Summary Notes by Andrew Perriman

I have been periodically reading through the first three volumes of N.T.Wright's Christian Origins Series for the past two years and now am halfway through the 2nd part. The three parts breakup as (1) New Testament and the People of God, (2) Jesus and the Victory of God and (3) The resurrection of the Son of God (the recently released volumes of Paul complete the series- I am not even beginning to think about touching Paul and Pauline studies now)- the whole series is massive and astounding and to read through Wrights tour of 1st Century Judaism, Christianity and the world of the New Testament is definitely an attempt at diving in the deep end for me. The books just feel "special" and historically speaking seems like a landmarker for all NT (and biblical) studies in the near future- they feel like the books people will be talking about and arguing about in 50 to 100 years from now. Richard Hays, Dean of Duke Divinity School, says on the back book jacket: "The sweep of Wright's project as a whole is breathtaking. It is impossible to give a fair assessment of his achievement without sounding grandiose: no New Testament scholar since Bultmann has even attempted- let alone achieved- such an innovative and comprehensive account of New Testament history and theology."

Because of the social and historical value of Wright's study, these books alone are worth wading through and at least being familiar with- not to mention the intrinsic value of Wright's presentation of Jesus and the world of the gospels. I picked these books up to help me go deeper into studying the gospels as I taught them, and it is nothing short to say it was a dynamite in my thought life and exploded the tunnels of possibly study and research wide open.

So have I built up excitement for the books enough yet??!! Well, the downfall or the stumbling block for the average laymen or bible student is that these 3 books combined are 1,883 pages (bibliographies not included!) and they aren't necessarily the "quick read" type of material- I remember when I first began to read vol.1 and it took me 2 hours to get through the 26 page introduction!! Eventually as I got his lingo and figured out who the heck "bultmann, schliermarcher, and harnack" were I started to move a little faster.

Anyways, this winter I am trying to plow through some more of this series and maybe even finish it and as I was getting back into it I was looking for a summary or notes online of the 1st volumet to help me review and I found this amazing resource... a 44 page dense and rich summary of notes, quotes of the first three volumes in the series. They are written by Writer, Pastor and Theologian Andrew Perriman whose has written books on "narrative theology" and the eschatology for the emerging church as well as women in the ministry for IVP, he posted his summary notes on his blog and you can download them as a PDF.

This is a really helpful introduction to the series of Wright, it is a 44 page summary of 1,883 pages...so he leaves a few things out but really gives great quotes and synopsis of the major points of Wright's project. I highly recommend either reading it as an intro to the project or as a replacement if you think you will never get into all the books. I am currently using it to refresh the parts of read and hopefully it will help me read quicker through the parts I have yet to read.

Last thing, maybe a more helpful introduction to the work and thought of N.T. Wright is some of his more popular books. It seems like he compresses his scholarly work into more bite-size portions- these are great for those who don't want all the footnotes, debates and extra conversations. The way I see it the following three volumes can be substituted by these more popular books:

1. NT and the People of God: How God became King
2. Jesus and the Victory of God: Simply Jesus or the Challenge of Jesus
3. Resurrection of the son of God: Suprised by Hope

Christmas- A celebration of the Incarnation

The last few christmas mornings I have enjoyed reading C.S. Lewis on the incarnation..this morning it really got to me and again was a great reminder of the joy and abundant life that enters into all life because of the one life of Jesus....here are some excerpts from him, its taken from "suprised by Joy" pg.50-55:

"The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God"

"In the Incarnation, God the Son takes the body and human soul of Jesus, and, through that, the whole environment of Nature, all the creaturely predicament, into His own being. So that 'he came down from heaven' can almost be transposed into 'heaven drew earth up into it', and locality, limitation, sleep, sweat, footsore weariness, frustration, pain, doubt, and death are, from before all worlds, known by God from within. The pure light walks the earth; the darkness, received into the heart of the Deity, is there swallowed up. Where except in uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned?"

"The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature's total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation. There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about. It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion- an invasion which intends complete conquest and 'occupation'."

Using the language Lewis uses in Mere Christianity- what I get out of his articulation of the incarnation is that the "bio" life (created natural life) is meant to be overrun/filled/occupied/covered like a blanket with the "zoe" life (uncreated creating life- God's life) and the incarnation event was the pivotal moment in all history where God dwelling as man did something to this world to enable us to share in and experience the eternal life of God! The incarnation event was the gateway to the coming of the new age and a seal/promise of a new heavens and new earth still to come!

I hope in the midst of the holiday thrills-turkey, gifts, movies, friends,family...you get to celebrate the incarnation and reflect on what it conveys about life, reality, you and the people you get to celebrate the holiday with!

 

Gen.1 by Rikki Watts

Gen.1-3 is foundational for a biblical worldview. This paper about Gen.1 in light of the Ancient Near East context by Rikki Watts, professor at Regent College looks at this foundational and fascinating chapters in the context of the ancient world it was written in.

Much modern discussion of Gen.1-3 is weighed down or distracted by talk of science/evolution and modern controversies relative to readers of the 21st century. While these things are important, and I don't want to disregard them at all, it must be said that we often forget to ask the question: What did Gen.1 mean for the ancient Israelites wandering around in the wilderness? What would this text have sounded like or meant for them as they were recently released from slavery and awaiting a promise land? The below paper by Rikki Watts is an in-depth quality look at Genesis in light of it's ancient near eastern context. Watt's explenation of Ancient Eastern creation myths and how they compare/contrast to Ezekiel opens up for me the fascinating and foundational nature of the opening chapters of the Bible!

Jurgen Moltmann and Miroslav Volf (Theology of Joy)

Poem about the teachings of Jesus

Last year I was blessed to teach the gospel of Matthew. I concentrated on teaching about the "teachings of Jesus" an incredibly humbling and amazing thing to "teach about". At the end of my time studying Jesus' teachings I wrote this poem without much thought after...it was what came in a spur of a moment as a total reaction... almost a year later I stumbled on them again and agreed even more with my spontaneous reaction, figured I would post it here...

Glorious tensions arise

pouring out from the skies

sun rays rain down

and all this in the vehicle of words

how could vibrations uttered thousands of years ago 

still shake the day

how could questions asked then 

still be unanswered

how could all of man’s progressively triumphant wisdom

be silent in the face of his words

how can I hear such greatness

and defy them knowingly

Repent for the kingdom is at hand

Excerpt from Expositers commentary on MT. 27:9-10 by D.A. Carson

We have been going through the prophets lately, and that means we are looking at all the NT quotes in prophetic literature. In doing so, we find some interesting and puzzling quotations. Verses that dont seem predictive become "fulfilled" verses attributed to Jeremiah seem irrelevant to the NT context and not in context with the OT book?! This is definately not the norm or absolute of NT references, but it happens enough. One of the more tricky ones is Matthew' quoting of the blended citation of Jeremiah and Zechariah. Here is what D.A. Carson has to say about in his commentary:

D.A. Carson’s Commentary on Matthew 27:9-10

Three aspects of this complex quotation need discussion.

1. The ascription to Jeremiah.

On the face of it, the quotation is a rough rendering of Zec 11:12-13. The only obvious allusions to Jeremiah are 18:2-6; 32:6-15—Jeremiah did visit a potter and buy a field. It is difficult to imagine why Matthew mentioned Jeremiah instead of Zechariah, even though Jeremiah is important in this gospel (cf. 2:17; 16:14).

We should first note that no extant version of Zec 11 refers to a field; thus Matthew’s attributing the quotation to Jeremiah suggests we ought to look to that book. Jeremiah 19:1-13 is the obvious candidate, where Jeremiah is told to purchase a potter’s jar and take some elders and priests to the Valley of Ben Hinnom. There he is to warn of the destruction of Jerusalem for her sin, illustrated by smashing the jar. A further linguistic link is “innocent blood” (Jer 19:4); and thematic links include renaming a locality associated with potters (19:1) with a name (“Valley of Slaughter”) denoting violence (19:6). The place will henceforth be used as a burial ground (19:11), as a token of God’s judgment. In other words, the quotation appears to refer to Jer 19:1-13, along with phraseology drawn mostly from Zec 11:12-13. Such fusing of sources under one “quotation” is not unknown elsewhere in Scripture (e.g., Mk 1:2-3). Jeremiah alone is mentioned, perhaps because he is the more important of the two prophets, and perhaps also because Jer 19 is more important as to prophecy and fulfillment.

1. Meaning 

How did Matthew understand the OT texts he was quoting? The question is not easy, because the two OT passages themselves can be variously explained. It appears that in Zec 11 the “buyers” (v. 5) and the three shepherds (vv. 5, 8, 17) apparently represent Israel’s leaders, who are slaughtering the sheep. God commands Zechariah to shepherd the “flock marked for slaughter” (v. 7), and he tries to clean up the leadership by sacking the false shepherds. But he discovers that not only is the leadership corrupt, but the flock detests him (v. 8). Thus Zechariah comes to understand the Lord’s decision to have no more pity on the people of the land (v. 6).

Zechariah decides to resign (11:9-10), exposing the flock to ravages. Because he has broken the contract, he cannot claim his pay (presumably from the “buyers”); but they pay him off with thirty pieces of silver (v. 12). But now the Lord tells Zechariah to throw this “handsome price at which they priced me” (probably ironical) to the potter in the “house of the LORD.”

The parallel between Zec 11 and Mt 26-27 is not exact. In Zechariah the money is paid to the good shepherd; in Matthew it is paid to Judas and returned to the Jewish leaders. In Zechariah the money goes directly to the “potter” in the temple; in Matthew, after being thrown into the temple, it purchases “the potter’s field.” Nevertheless the central parallel is stunning: in both instances the Lord’s shepherd is rejected by the people of Israel and valued at the price of a slave. And in both instances the money is flung into the temple and ends up purchasing something that pollutes and points to the destruction of the nation (see comments on 15:7-9; 21:42).

(3)Fulfillment

In the light of these relationships between the events surrounding Jesus’ death and the two key OT passages that make up Matthew’s quotation, what does the evangelist mean by saying that the prophecy “was fulfilled”? As in 2:17, the form of this introductory formula shrinks from making Judas’s horrible crime the immediate result of the Lord’s word, while nevertheless insisting that all has taken place in fulfillment of Scripture (cf. 1:22 with 2:17). What we find in Matthew, including vv. 9-10, is not identification of the text with an event but fulfillment of the text in an event, based on a broad typology governing how both Jesus and Matthew read the OT (see comments on 2:15; 8:17; 13:35; 26:28, 54). Because of this typological model, Matthew can introduce the commonly noticed changes: e.g., the one on whom a price is set is no longer the prophet (“me,” Zec 11:13), but Jesus.

NIV Expositers Commentary on MT.2:15 quotation of Hos. 11:1

The OT quotation almost certainly comes from Hos 11:1, which refers to Israel’s exodus from Egypt. In what sense can Matthew mean that Jesus’ return to the land of Israel “fulfilled” this text? Four observations clarify the issue.

(1) Jesus is often presented in the NT as the antitype of Israel, or better, the typological recapitulation of Israel. For example, Jesus’ temptation after forty days of fasting recapitulated the forty years’ trial of Israel (see comments on 4:1-11). Pharaoh had to let Israel go because Israel was the Lord’s son (Ex 4:22-23). Thus it is only fitting that Jesus also come out of Egypt as God’s Son, for already by this time he has been presented as the messianic “son of David” and, by the virginal conception, the Son of God (see also 3:17).

(2) The verb “to fulfill” (GK G4444) has broader significance than mere one-to-one prediction (see comments on 5:17). Not only in Matthew but elsewhere in the NT, the history and laws of the OT are perceived to have prophetic significance. Hebrews, for example, argues that the laws regarding the tabernacle and the sacrificial system were from the beginning designed to point toward the only Sacrifice that could really remove sin and toward the only Priest who could serve once and for all as the effective Mediator between God and humankind. “Fulfillment” must be understood against the background of such interlocking themes and their typological connections.

(3) It follows, therefore, that the NT writers do not think they are reading back into the OT things that are not already there germinally. Regarding v. 15, Hos 11 pictures God’s love for Israel. Although God threatens judgment and disaster, yet because he is God and not a man (11:9), he looks to a time when in compassion he will roar like a lion and his children will return to him (11:10-11). In short Hosea himself looks forward to a saving visitation by the Lord. The “son” language is part of this messianic matrix; insofar as that matrix points to Jesus the Messiah and insofar as Israel’s history looks forward to one who sums it up, in that sense Hos 11:1 looks forward to Jesus the Messiah. The NT writers insist that the OT can be rightly interpreted only if the entire revelation is kept in perspective as it is historically unfolded (e.g., Gal 3:6-14).

(4) If this interpretation of Mt 2:15 is correct, it follows that for Matthew Jesus himself is the locus of true Israel. This does not necessarily mean that God has no further purpose for racial Israel; but it does mean that the position of God’s people in the Messianic Age is determined by reference to Jesus, not race.