Discuss Theology

The prior headline is mine alone and does not reflect any phrase within his book. Having said this, I was struck by the following passage in his book, Paul in Fresh Perspective.

“More specifically, Paul’s redefined monotheism gave him a powerful stance over against the various ‘powers of the world’ (stoicheia – scj). …there is plenty of room, within the Jewish-style monotheism redefined around Christ and Spirit, for a serious analysis on his part both of the existence of principalities and powers in the world – in other words, this does not itself compromise monotheism, as has sometimes been thought – and also for the view that they have been defeated in the death and resurrection of the messiah, with this defeat then being implemented by the spirit in new creation in the future and in Christian living (anticipating that new creation) in the present. The western thought of our own period has often become confused at this point, because Paul’s thought moves to and fro, in ways natural to him but strange to us, between what we think of as purely spiritual powers, right up to sin and death themselves, and the obviously earthly rulers who crucified Jesus (I Corinthians 2.8). Somewhere in the middle, touching both, we should locate the shadowy stoicheia, of whom we have already briefly spoken. What binds them all together is that they all alike rule over human beings, and over the rest of God’s world for that matter, through the power and threat of corruption, decay and death itself. As the Wisdom of Solomon saw so clearly, earthly tyrants rule by establishing a kind of concordat with death. Caesar rules through the power of sin and death, and they rule through him. The point of Paul’s redefined monotheism, by contrast, is that the resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of that new creation in which God’s power over death itself is the means whereby creation is reaffirmed as good.”

Paul in Fresh Perspective, N.T. Wright, pg. 104

So where are we headed and what is the future? I posted before about continuity of the covenant. Paul saw the coming of the Messiah, and His death and resurrection, as the defining moment of the covenant. Everything points to this event, both backwards and forward. Where we are going is where we have come from. This is a world where He is Messiah, having, and continuing, to defeat anyone, or thing, which would claim His sovereignty.

I am always amazed at pre-millennial eschatology, which believes in the eventual defeat of the Church. The doctrine declares, in a round about fashion, that Jesus either does not want, or can’t, maintain his kingdom on earth without having to drag his angelic servants back down here to defeat the powers he could not defeat at his resurrection. Of course they would declare he will ultimately defeat them, but that is not what Wright is declaring here, and would agree.

Resurrection for us leads to hope, salvation and healing. Without His resurrection we are a sorry lot. Resurrection leads to not just hope, salvation and healing for mankind, but also for His entire creation. His work moves from glory to glory. The earthly work and life of the Messiah is truly the great revelation of God.

“A full account of Paul’s redefined monotheism would need, as I said at the start of the chapter, to explore three things in detail:
(a) his fresh engagement with Israel’s scriptures, showing the elements of continuity and discontinuity with other readings of the same material at roughly the same time;
(b) his articulation of the point in explicit opposition to the paganism(s) of the day; and
(c) the way in which this redefinition played out in the actual life-setting of his day-to-day work of evangelism and looking after the young churches.”

Paul in Fresh Perspective, N.T. Wright, pg. 102

An aspect of scripture, which many evangelicals have over looked, is continuity from what we would term the old covenant and new covenant. It would seem rather obvious that there is a connection, but many, even from within the early church, made a clean break of Christianity from it’s Jewish roots. Where Nathaneal said, “Can any good thing come of Nazareth?”, the Greeks of the early church would say, “Can any good thing come out of Jerusalem?”

Numerous doctrines were formulated dealing with the covenant, and God, in a dualistic fashion. As we might hear today regarding the bible, “I don’t believe in the god of the Ooooold Testament , but I follow the God of the Neeeeeeewwwwww Testament ”. This is all too common in Christian circles. Certainly Luther and Calvin would disagree with this assessment of the old and new covenant. Yet out of this tradition comes a law/anti-law debate, faith/works, etc.

The covenant is the covenant. It’s not that it’s new or old, but rather God’s prior revelation and our current understanding is unfolding. Following the progression of the covenant through scripture is very uplifting. Our understanding of Hebrews 12 is highlighted because of the continuity of the covenant. The God of Judges and the prophets is the same God who died upon the cross for the Church.

A clearer understanding of the Word can only be obtained when we look backward across the whole history of scripture, the people of God and the creation account. To miss the continuity is to not understand our place in God’s works.

More on the Da Vinci code from Hugh Hewitt

Maybe It’s Not Any Good?

by Hugh Hewitt

May 16, 2006 07:31 AM PST

The DaVinci Code isn’t getting the ordinary roll-out of early screenings:

The Da Vinci Code will make its debut at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday night. Critics and other journalists will first see the movie on Tuesday night, barely allowing them time to write their articles for the Wednesday premiere and Friday opening in theaters around the world.Even theater owners, who by law must be allowed to see a film before formally booking it for their movie houses, saw the film — running two hours and 29 minutes — only Friday, which by exhibition standards is as last minute as it gets.

The strategy, studio representatives say, is to preserve a climate of mystery and excitement around the movie, despite the fact that anyone who is interested probably already knows the plot….

Instead, the film was shown on the Sony lot, with strict security, to close friends and family of the filmmakers, said Michael Rosenberg, the president of Imagine. Their comments were used in place of more scientific feedback, he said.

The concerns, said executives involved with the picture, were that information about the film could start a nit-picking debate over the filmmaker’s choices in adapting the book, rather than focus on the movie overall, or that it might fuel religious opposition to the film.

For background on the book/movie, visit MarkDRoberts.com.

You can find more details on this at ReformedCatholicism.com from which we got this.If you’ve been looking for the super secret OPC report on justification, you can find it here.

OPC response to N.T. Wright, Trinitarian Theology

Stinson, a Southern Baptist, complains that a church filled with women turns men away from the gospel. This is an odd conclusion given the fact that most men I know, christian or non-christian, are more than happy to walk into rooms filled with women. This is, of course, an argument that men should go to church and lead it. Get the details from the CBMW web site. As well, Wayne Grudem reports that Richard Hove has produced the “most definitive” study of Galatians 3:28 in our generation. It is the “most definitive work” representing the 10% of contemporary NT scholars for whom Grudem speaks. Randy Stinson, Wayne Grudem and a church filled with women, complementarian

If the reader looks in the index of Richard Longenecker’s Road to Damascus, he or she finds that the only contributor to mention the Trinity is the pentecostal scholar Gordon Fee.Richard Longenecker, The Road to Damascus and Trinitarian Theology, The Trinity

Fee states 4 presuppositions in Paul’s mind about the Trinity:

1.God is one and personal

2.The Spirit is the Spirit of God and of Christ

3.The Spirit and Christ are fully Divine

4.The Spirit is distinct from Christ and the Father

The Road from Damascus, Richard Longenecker [ed.]p.170

N.T. Wright, Federal Vision, Auburn Avenue, New Perspectives, Orthodox Presbyterain Church (OPC)

Ron and I have been discussing N.T. Wright with an undergraduate student of the University of the Nations. It is an on going topic for me since I am a member of an Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) congregation in Montana and have attended a PCA congregation in Vancouver WA. Kevin Johnson has posted the report regarding the OPC’s Report of the Committee to Study the Doctrine of Justification, submitted to the 73rd General Assembly, at www.reformedcatholicism.com. This is a paper regarding Federal Vision and New Perspectives. I will also add to our blog.

Much of what we have discussed is the orthodox aspects of Wright’s works, and there are many useful insights to be had. Ron and I are still attempting clear up what we believe Wright’s understanding, and teaching, on justification. My initial thought is that his views are orthodox, but not reformed (Lutheran). This is a major distinction. I hope we are able to explore this in greater detail overtime. Over the next months, as I work through his doctrine, I will add snippets from my readings which will help us understand scripture a little clearer fashion.

With that in mind, I wish to turn to N.T. Wrights work on Paul. He discusses Monotheism: The Jewish Roots, in his volume Paul (pg. 86).

“Within the twenty-first-century world of religious discourse, it is a matter of sensitive debate whether we should suppose that the one God revealed in Jesus is identical to the one God known in Judaism or the one God revealed in the Koran – or whether, to put that more carefully, the language used in these different traditions about the one God does in fact refer to the same being, even though the things predicated of God contain serious mutual incompatibilities (it is analytically true of the God of the Koran that he would not and could not have become incarnate in the form of a ‘son’, and that he neither would nor could have died on a cross). Whatever we say about that, my point is that Jewish monotheism of the sort that Paul knew when he was growing up is a particular type of monotheism, which elsewhere I, and others, have called creational and covenantal monotheism. The one God of Israel made the world and has remained in dynamic relationship with it; and this one God, in order to further his purposes within and for that world, has entered into covenant with Israel in particular.”

One of our purposes for beginning this blog was due to several within our mission thinking they could do away with the Trinity to convert Muslims to Christ. We were not shocked, but rather horrified at this level of ignorance in our missionaries. I believe part of the failure of those missionaries is their misunderstanding of the covenantal nature of God, as opposed to individualistic salvation. They have tried to build a church of individual converts from Islam, but there is no community (in fact they have encouraged the converts to stay within the mosque). The Church is not the mosque; it is Israel, through God’s creation and covenant. New Perspectives, Federal Vision and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church

The Spring issue of the Priscilla Papers just came out.  Nicole is a card carrying Calvinist and Professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. “I believe that most, if not all, of the restrictions on women in society have no basis in Scripture, and that those maintained in the Church are based on an inadequate interpretation of a few restrictive passages, which put them in contradiction with the manifest special concern and love of God for women articulated from Genesis to Revelation.”  I agree the interpretations are “inadequate”. I wonder how his Calvinist friends to the north and in Phoenix like that statement?  Roger Nicole on complementarian and egalitarian thought

Mother’s day, 2006,

What do St. Augustine, John Wesley and St. Timothy have in common?–Godly mothers.  St. Augustine, John Wesley, St. Timothy, complementarian?