How Do We Understand the Bible?
N. T. Wright, in his book, "The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is" addresses the question of how we are to understand the Bible in our modern world.
Wright starts with an carefully developed historical view of first century Palestine. He puts his scholarly focus on the meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Symbols, the crucified Messiah, the Deity of Jesus and the meaning of resurrection - all as they would have been understood in the first century. In the process, Wright reminds us just how far our thinking is from that world.
The challenge is how to map that world into our world today. Some of the things which challenged them in that day are not issues today. They may be analogous, but the issues have substantially changed. And our preaching needs to take this into account.
Wright is pretty critical of modern preaching since it brings aid to people who no longer see themselves as needing aid. Giving Luther to a Pelagian makes sense. But Wright reminds us that we are no longer dealing with Pelagians. It's not that people think that they are good enough to merit Heaven. It's that the question no longer matters to them. You have your truth and they have theirs, you are told.
Where do we find the nexus, the connection between 20 centuries ago and today?
Stay tuned.
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