We are beginning our study of The New Testament in Its World by NT Wright and Michael Bird for 2025. This past week we covered the introductory material describing how the New Testament is a multivalent volume – history, testimony, encouragement, correction, inspiration – essentially holy scripture for those who find the voice and actions of God within its pages. Wright and Bird make the poignant observation that the New Testament is a living book because its source is the living God; and it is a living book for those who are following Jesus because it is a book that invites the reader, the seeker, to find their own part in the “drama” of what is unfolding within our world as human beings come to terms with the fact of God’s call and presence.
I remember hearing a preacher say, “It is not so much that we read the Bible, but rather that the Bible reads us.” When we open the New Testament we can relegate it to simply being a book amid other old books, or we can begin to open our minds, our hearts, our imaginations to the larger tableau upon which it rests; and that is the goal of this study. Finding the heights and depths of scripture will somewhat depend upon the heights and depths that we open in ourselves to God’s message.
Chapter 1 – Beginning Study of the New Testament
The New Testament will in some ways be a kind of mirror reflecting back upon us the way that we generally move through the world. Often the first thing that we see in scripture are those things that generally concern us the most. If we are “nuts and bolts” about the practicalities of life, then we will most likely find those “nuts and bolts” within scripture. If we are more imaginative and poetic, we will most likely find those voices within the Bible standing out the most. However, no one perspective is given the latitude or permission to relegate scripture into a single dimension; the voice from the New Testament will always be inviting us to extend the boundaries of what we know of God.
NT Wright, “How do we understand the play, the real life story of God and the world which reached its ultimate climax in Jesus of Nazareth and which then flows out, in the power of the spirit, to transform the world with his love and justice” {41} And then, “How do we find our own parts and learn to play them?”
We are very much a people “of the Book.” Early followers of Jesus were people formed by study of the Hebrew scriptures, as well as being conversant with the many texts of the Greek philosophical tradition within the Gentile world. Ideas, writings, study, conversation, learning would have all played a part in the early Church. The first “story” of concern was that of Israel, and God’s actions among a particular people as the genesis point of having contact with our world. Although Jesus did not write any books that we know of, Jesus did locate his own identity within that story of Israel and that he was the culmination of the long relationship that Israel had maintained with God through real time and in real history. For those not born into the story of Israel, or for whom the story of Israel and God was unfamiliar, these Gentiles had to be brought into that history, and given some hand-hold upon the foundation upon which Jesus himself stood.
This would become the sacred task of Paul, explaining how the Messiah died for our sins “in accordance with the scriptures,” explaining what this meant and how to live in the truth of this new reality shared by Jewish and Gentile believers.{42} It is called a “new” Testament because it gives voice to a new covenant. The works of the New Testament gives voice and vision to what it means to be involved, or “caught up,” in this new relationship with God; it is not simply a matter of thinking new thoughts, but rather a matter of living in a new way. And as our lives can be both deep and broad in scope and experience, so too the words of the New Testament address us in those very places.
“The New Testament is therefore designed – designed, I would say, by the holy spirit! – to be the book which, when we read it, shapes and energizes and directs us not only for worship but also for mission.” {43}
“What Is The New Testament”
27 books of varying genres of literature. NT Wright points out that some folks in the First Century would have thought of the New Testament as a book of philosophical inspiration, others a community manual, others a source of origin stories and myths about the deity; in some respects it is all of these things. It might also depend to whom we are addressing this question – what is the New Testament? Asking a group of Greek philosophers would most likely elicit a very different response from asking a group of Jewish rabbis. The philosophers and the rabbis would each have their own observations, perhaps finding within its pages either confirmation or challenges to their own bias.
“Keeping History, Literature, and Theology Together“
History – the past. Literature – the text. Theology – understanding God and the world.
These three are all interwoven in the pages of the New Testament. NT Wright makes a very good point about how these three sources work together to create an uncommon “Good.”
” . . . what we find as whole cloth in the text – a historically situated discourse about God and the world, in various literary forms – can be violently torn asunder by readers who are afraid that too much history, or too much literature, or too much theology might prove that their mighty edifices of scholarship and piety have been built on a foundation of sand. It has been all too easy for some interpreters to highlight one of the trio: history or literature or theology – and to discard the rest.”{47}
Essentially what Wright asserts is that the New Testament is history, literature, and theology interwoven as an organic whole; and disturbing that “wholeness” is to disturb its ultimate usefulness to human beings – i.e.: the revelation of God to human creatures in search of meaning, truth, and transformation.
The Three Questions of New Testament Study:
How did Christianity begin, and why did it take the shape that it did?
Why did the early Jesus-followers write the way they did, and what does that tell us about their world-view?
What did the early Christians believe about God and the world, and about humans in general and Jesus in particular within that, and what kind of sense might their beliefs make?
The Carpenter's Nail 