BRIEF RECAP FROM LAST WEEK: January 5
From the outset of this study NT Wright encourages us to ask the question, “Why does this book have such an impact on me?” He asks that question about any number of the books that might line the shelves of our homes or offices. Our house is chock full of books – most of them have been read – and they each played a role in how the members of our family have negotiated the neighborhoods of our lives. And there is quite the range of topics – fiction, history, medicine, gardening, birds, theology, psychology, cooking, a smattering of “over the counter” science, and family/parenting advice. In the moments in which they were held and read, I imagine that what was contained within seemed almost priceless, or at least worth as much as doing anything else.
Of course, when we take the Bible into consideration, we are supposed to say that it is THE book amid all other books[; but I agree with NT Wright, it is always good ask the question, “Why?” Why does this slim, little, ancient volume command such gravity and focus along human pathways? Think about it for a moment.
What are the parts of the New Testament that you can recall, perhaps repeat word for word? Is it Paul’s hymn to love in Corinthians – “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.? Perhaps for you it is the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” Perhaps it is the words of John that we hear so often at funerals, “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. . . .”
Why does this book cause millions of people around the world the gather regularly in order to be both reminded of what it says, as well as come to some deeper understanding of what it might be saying to our lives today?
The beauty of the life of faith that we share is that we will each have our own story to tell as to answer the “Why” questions that the New Testament presents to us.
LOOKING AHEAD THIS WEEK: January 12
Sometimes I like to dream that I will live to see the day that traveling in time is not simply the plot twist of science fiction stories. Whether in this body, or through some instrumentation of the mind and the soul, I sometimes spend long moments wondering about the people and places to which I would return.
Take a moment and think about it – if you could make a return to any event in the Biblical history – where would you go? Would you go to stand with Abraham and look up at the sky as the heavens promise him that his descendants would be scattered like the stars? Would you stand with Moses at the bush that begins to burn on the hillside above the flocks of sheep? Would you be having dinner in the hotel lobby when a tired and panicky looking man comes through the door saying that his young wife is pregnant and they need a place to stay the night? Maybe you would like to see Paul taking the philosophers of Athens to school in the Agora. Or maybe see Peter cut off the centurion’s ear in the olive grove when they come for Jesus. Who knows – only you know.
The New Testament is not the same as reading “The Hobbit,” or “Cinderella,” or “The Hunt For Red October.” Given that the persons and events of the New Testament did occur, have some sense of their “historical” weight and value can only deepen our understanding of what is being communicated within it. Think of a world where most water was carried by hand. Think of a world where everything you put in our mouth is probably the direct result of what you have held in your hand the previous months – seeds, hoes, sickles. Think of a world where all information travels no faster than the speed of either a human foot, or a horses foot. Think of a world where powers exist within our bodies the same way we tell one another that are “under the weather,” or have a cold.
Here are some points that NT Wright would have us keep in mind:
“Why is retrieving and understanding the past fraught with problems?”
- Few sources of information that are open to varieties of interpretaion.
- Even historians can be biased and uneven in giving their account of history – often writing their bias into research.
- Historians must maintain a “wide lens” and draw their information from a variety of sources, languages, literature, archeology, sociology, and intellectual history/philosophy.
These are topics that we will discuss this week.
The Carpenter's Nail 