Here’s a quote from N T Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God, where he articulates the Christian story, and shows how Christian theology answers the four basic worldview questions. (the quote is from page 132, emphasis added)

First, Christian theology tells a story, and seeks to tell it coherently. We have already summarized this story, and can do so again briefly. The story is about a creator and his creation, about humans made in this creator’s image and given tasks to perform, about the rebellion of humans and the dissonance of creation at every level, and particularly about the creator’s acting, through Israel and climactically through Jesus, to rescue his creation from its ensuing plight. The story continues with the creator acting by his own spirit within the world to bring it towards the restoration which is his intended goal for it. A great deal of Christian theology consists of the attempt to tell this story as clearly as possible, and to allow it to subvert other ways of telling the story of the world, including those which offer themselves as would-be Christian tellings but which, upon close examination, fall short in some way or other.

Second, this story, as the fundamental articulation of the worldview, offers as set of answers to the four worldview questions. We may set these out as follows, noting as we do some of the alternative views that are thereby ruled out. …

1. Who are we? We are humans, made in the image of the creator. We have responsibilities that come with this status. We are not fundamentally determined by race, gender, social class, geographical location; nor are we simply pawns in a determinist game.

2. Where are we? We are in a good and beautiful, though transient, world, the creation of the god in whose image we are made. We are not in an alien world, as the Gnostic imagines; nor in a cosmos to which we owe allegiance as to a god, as the pantheist would suggest.

3. What is wrong? Humanity has rebelled against the creator. This rebellion reflects a cosmic dislocation between the creator and the creation, and the world is consequently out of tune with its created intention. A Christian worldview rejects dualisms which associate evil with createdness or physicality; equally it rejects monisms that analyse evil simply in terms of some humans not being fully in tune with their environment. Its analysis of evil is more subtle and far-reaching. It likewise rejects as the whole truth all partial analyses, such as those of Marx or Freud, which elevate half-truths to the status of the whole truth.

4. What is the solution? The creator has acted, is acting, and will act within his creation to deal with the weight of evil set up by human rebellion, and to bring his world to the end for which it was made, namely that it should resonate fully with his own presence and glory. This action, of course, is focused upon Jesus and the spirit of the creator. We reject, that is, solutions to the human plight which only address one part of the problem.

There is a new edition of the newfrontiers magazine out and it has just been made available on the web. The theme of this edition is the cross, and, as expected there is a strong affirmation of a commitment to a substitutionary understanding of the atonement.

I particularly appreciated two things about their approach. First is the irenic tone, even when addressing the attacks on penal substitution from within evangelicalism (see in particular Mick Taylor’s article). Second, is that the doctrine of the atonement is not reduced to, or summed up entirely in the model of penal substitution. They recognise the importance of a symphonic view, with Andrew Wilson’s great article on Christus Victor demonstrating a willingness to embrace a fully orbed biblical understanding of significance of the cross.

Another thing that caught my eye was Adrian Holloway’s brief evangelistic message. The reason I found it interesting was because it represents exactly the type of gospel presentation that many in the emerging church are criticising. It is personal rather than about community, and it has a clear focus on eternal salvation and going to heaven without really mentioning the gospel’s power to transform life on earth.

But having said that, given the small space he had available, did he do a bad job? I think not. The initial presentation of the gospel will always have to be somewhat limited in scope. We can hardly expect people to be fully educated in the entire biblical metanarrative on our first occasion of sharing the gospel with them. He managed to fit in the concepts of universal sin, the love of God, substitutionary atonement, the resurrection and eternal life all in the space of a few paragraphs. There is of course much more to be said about the gospel. But should we really be bashing each other for failing to get the entire thing into a 60 second summary?

I first came across the LibraryThing website about a year ago. The idea is remarkably simple – it allows you to catalogue your books, tag them and review them. You can create a free account and manage up to 200 books to get a feel for it, but to add more you have to pay. The lifetime membership fee is very reasonable though, at $25 which works out at about £12, and I finally signed up this week.

Its a great way of keeping track of what books you have read, and also which ones you have lent to other people. I’ve still got a way to go before I will have added my entire collection. You can look at my library here. Another nice feature is that it will show you who has a similar library to you, which can be useful as you can look at the ratings people with similar tastes to you have given to books you are thinking of reading.

I’ve also put links to my book reviews on there, and discovered that I have now reviewed just over 100 books on this site over the last 3 years or so. I’ve been trying for the last couple of years to read more books than I buy (not counting books I am given).

Which brings me to a rather disturbing quote I found in Joanna & Alister McGrath’s book on self-esteem I read recently.

As Lewis W. Spitz, professor of history at Stanford University, once said: "There are those who write. Those who can’t write cut them down in reviews, which is one way of asserting themselves against their intellectual superiors.

I think there is value in a book review, even in one that is highly critical of the book in question. But those of us who write reviews need to beware of the review being more about ourselves and our impeccable gift of discernment than about the book in question.

In what sense is the gospel “good news” for those who are suffering? This question is at the heart of the debate that is going on about the gospel amongst the evangelical and emerging church.

Rob Bell said in a recent interview in a tearfund magazine that “Making sure people have water and proper medication IS the gospel”. Of course he is reacting against the much maligned “personal gospel”, but I do sometimes wonder whether the emerging church is headed directly towards a purely “social gospel”.

So here are some thoughts on how the gospel addresses suffering. This hasn’t been developed too much, so feel free to critique it in the comments.

The gospel is good news in the present and the future. It alleviates suffering in the present, and eradicates it in the future.

1. Good News in the Present

The gospel is good news in the present because it transforms lives. This addresses suffering in three ways:

First, it transforms the lives of those who are already believers, causing us to love others and lay down our lives to serve them. This results in us finding practical ways that we can help and love those in need. It finds expression as Christians sacrificially give of their time and money to be a blessing to others.

Second, it transforms the lives of those who are suffering, as they respond to the gospel and become followers of Jesus. Even in the midst of their suffering they can know “joy unspeakable” (1 Pet 1:8). They are also empowered by the Spirit, and supported by the community of God’s people to live in a new way. The gospel sets people free from self-destructive addictions, obsessions, phobias, guilt, and insecurities, opening the door for them to enjoy life to the full, even if their external circumstances may not have changed.

Third, it transforms the lives of those who cause suffering. The gospel is just as much for the violent and unjust as it is for the victim and the outcast. Society responds to criminals by locking them up, but the gospel offers them victory over the temptations and sinful patterns of behaviour they once found themselves in bondage to.

2. Good News in the Future

The so-called personal gospel, that offers us hope of eternity in the new heavens and the new earth even after we die, cannot and must not be relegated to being merely a side issue. There is a very strong eschatological theme that runs through the whole Bible. Our salvation is now but not yet. We long for the heavenly city that is to come (Heb 13:4). Our justification by faith in Jesus, though true in the present, will be the unshakable foundation of our deliverance from the “wrath that is to come” (1 Thess 1:10).

The gospel does include a proclamation of both a coming King and a coming judgement. Therefore it does have personal implications, which will determine whether our future will mean glorification or condemnation. This is why Jesus and the apostles always urged people to “repent and believe” as a response to the gospel.

Word and Deed

If as evangelicals we are to embrace the “whole gospel”, then we must both proclaim and enact the good news. To show love in action as well as to speak the truth in love. As I said in my previous post, let’s not short-change people with a partial gospel.

One of the ideas from the book Total Church (see my review here) that I have been thinking about recently is the assertion that sermons should not be prepared in isolation but in community. Also with their emphasis on house churches, they also caution against the “sermon” being the only model for Bible teaching – the word must be studied, discussed and applied in community.

Many churches have two models for Bible teaching. First is the sermon, prepared in isolation, preached as monologue, and rarely even discussed afterwards. Second is the weekly “Bible study” in which a passage is read and questions have asked. This model can so easily degenerate into a kind of pooled ignorance, where everyone throws in whatever thoughts they have, often without any real understanding of what the passage in question means.

Personally, I enjoy studying by myself, locked away in a room with books. And even in the context of small groups I prefer there to be more teaching and less discussion, to avoid wasted time on red herrings. But Total Church did challenge me to rethink a bit.

My initial idea was that exegesis is done by the individual and hermeneutics by the community. To properly understand a text we must understand its context, pay careful attention to the meaning of words and the flow of argument. To do justice to a belief in the unity of Scripture, we must also ensure that we do not interpret a passage in a way that is contradicted by other Biblical passages. All of this requires a commitment to serious study of the Bible. Simply turning up at small group and asking, “what do you think verse four means?” will not likely achieve a deep understanding. So exegesis needs to be done in advance of the teaching session.

Having thought further, even exegesis should be understood as a community project. My use of commentaries is an admission that I need help from others to properly understand a text and see all of its implications. The model suggested in Total Church is of a group of Bible teachers getting together to prepare for what they will teach to their own small groups. This of course requires coordination of what will be taught, but I am sure the resulting sermons or Bible studies will be much richer as a result. It also would serve as a mentoring and training process for new preachers and teachers.

Hermeneutics also belongs in community. I might give some effort to thinking about how my message can apply to students, parents, housewives, lawyers, asylum seekers, retired people, etc, but actually this may be better worked out in discussion, as I simply don’t know enough about the particulars of other people’s contexts. For example, I recently taught in my cell group on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I had done some background work on the principles taught in the passage, but when it came to how we could practically help the needy, I felt my inadequacy to speak to this subject and threw it open for suggestions.

So I think it is possible, without throwing away the sermon, or serious preparation, for us to involve community in every part of the Bible teaching process.

Most books on prayer observe that prayer functions as a declaration of our dependence on God. As we pray we acknowledge who God really is and who we really are. He is the Creator and we are the creatures. He is omnipotent and we are powerless.

Prayer therefore is an expression of humility, which set me thinking about what that says about me when I pray very little. Prayerlessness is an expression of pride and independence. When we don’t pray, we in effect say to God “I’m getting along just fine without you at the moment thanks, I’ll call you when I need you.”

The same is true for churches. A church that does not pray is a proud church. It is too comfortable with the way things are to feel the need to beseech God to intervene and change things.

“If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray…” (2 Chron 7:14)

I was listening to a Mark Driscoll sermon I downloaded recently and it was his first sermon back after he had been on holiday. He asked his congregation if the elders who had been preaching in his absence had remembered to tell them about Jesus. Of course the congregation replied that they had, to which Mark said “good, that means no one has to get fired”.

It sounded like another of his great one-liners, but on reflection, I think he really meant it. In fact, in another talk I recently listened to he made a guarantee that whatever Sunday you come to his church you will hear Jesus preached.

Now I can understand why Mark Driscoll annoys people. He calls things as he sees them, and doesn’t waste time qualifying his controversial statements. But the thing I like most about him is the Christ-centredness of all his preaching (my second favourite thing is that he preaches for over an hour in an age where our attention span is reckoned to be almost non-existent). I’ve listened to him preach through Ruth, 1 Corinthians, Nehemiah, and while discussing all kinds of diverse topics and applications, he always makes sure that there is an obvious christological focus. No one is left in any doubt of the importance of loving Jesus, knowing Jesus, trusting Jesus, following Jesus.

I know a lot of preachers like to listen to Mark Driscoll. He has a great way of putting theological truth across in a very contemporary way, that is accessible to outsiders, and puts a fresh perspective on things for those who have been in the church for a long time. He also has the courage to speak about those awkward topics that most would rather not mention. Many of these preachers are borrowing his vocabulary and his mannerisms to spice up their own messages. But the thing I hope most of all that people will copy is the passion that every time someone comes to church, they will hear about Jesus.

It grieves me that many evangelical or charismatic churches could preach whole sermon series with barely a reference to Jesus. He doesn’t get mentioned because “everyone knows all that”, or “we need to move on beyond the basics”, or “we already did a series on Jesus”. The church needs a lot more Mark Driscolls – the attitude is optional, but the message is fundamental.  We need preachers who will unapologetically proclaim the King and his Kingdom, instead of simply “the Church Leader and his Congregation”, or “the believer and his personal life”.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Cor 2:2)

I’ve been preparing to lead a cell group meeting on the parable of the Good Samaritan, and have been thinking about the reasons that cause us to “walk on by” when we come across someone in need. I’ll post my notes up on my theology page when they’re done.

As I prepared it, it reminded me of a website I had been sent a link to, of someone asking for help because his daughter was seriously ill and the medical bills were out of control. Of course, there were excuses readily to hand. Could this be a scam? Ought there not to be some kind of charity that could give him a grant? Won’t my giving be inefficient because it is an American so there won’t be gift aid and I’ll have to pay a currency conversion fee on top of PayPal fees? And aren’t there a thousand even more pressing concerns?

But as I thought these thoughts, a line from Martin Layzell’s wonderful song “Walk as Jesus Walked” kept running through my head.

To see the poor and not pass by is to walk as Jesus’ walked.

For whatever reason, this particular need had come across my path. And every time the song came into my head, I was reminded of it. Finally, today, I made a small donation. It would have been very easy, and quite understandable (some might even say wise!) to pass by. But I felt the Spirit prompted me to practice what I was preaching, and to help without making excuses.

Heidi Baker has a saying…

We should stop every single time for each person

I need to learn to stop just one time.

Jesus closed the parable of the good Samaritan with a simple command:

Go, and do likewise

I have a question for my readers (yes, both of you!) today. Does your church run any kind of theological training course, and if so, what content does it have? I have been looking around at various things going on and noticed that most church theology courses tend to run for about 10-15 “sessions”, which either run on an evening, or for half a day on a Saturday. What I find more interesting, though, is what material is covered.

Here’s four distinct approaches I have noticed, with some reflection on their advantages and disadvantages.

1. Foundational

These courses don’t actually teach theology as such, but attempt to give people the tools with which they can study theology for themselves. Typically this will involve a focus on epistemology and hermeneutics, along with some history of the Canon of Scripture and why Christians believe it. The Theology Program is perhaps the best example of this I have come across.

Advantages – if it works well, you will have equipped people to think critically about their own beliefs and evaluate others

Disadvantages – many churches would rather give people “the answers” on a theological topic & feel uncomfortable with people “deconstructing” their theology

– it takes skilled teachers to do this well

2. Systematic

This is perhaps the most common approach. The course runs like a mini Systematic Theology, with one lecture covering each major topic. Newfrontiers has a “Word Plus” course that runs along these lines.

Advantages – Systematic Theology textbooks will provide a wealth of source material to teach from & can also be used as a course text

– churches can choose the topics they will cover, allowing them to explain their denominational stance on particular “key” issues

– each lecture can be taught by a different person without a significant loss of continuity

Disadvantages – not sufficient time to cover any one topic in much detail

– can simply become an exercise in giving people the “right opinions” on any given topic rather than encouraging them to think for themselves.

3. Topical

This simply takes one sub-topic of theology and covers it in depth. This might be pneumatology, or ethics, or ecclesiology etc. I have recently been listening to the St Aldates School of Theology lectures on eschatology which take this approach.

Advantages – Gives enough time to really cover all the aspects of a topic in depth.

– Allows time to reflect on differing opinions and come to strong convictions

– If a different topic is tackled each course, the same people can keep coming back to learn new stuff, rather than simply attending once

Disadvantages – Requires significant preparation, as ready-made course material is harder to come by

– Works best if led by one person as it needs significant continuity week to week

4. Biblical

Churches that are into expository teaching may well choose this option. It is more often termed a “School of the Word” than of theology. Essentially, you work your way through a book of the Bible verse by verse or chapter by chapter.

Advantages – course materials / study guides / commentaries are readily available

– can be used to teach good hermeneutical method

– gets people stirred up to do Bible study, and gets people more Bible-literate

– as with the topical approach, people can go on as many courses as they like if the book chosen changes each time.

Disadvantages – can mean that some of those “whole Bible” big topics of systematic theology never get addressed in depth because they are only alluded to in passing

Questions

Does your church (current or past) run any theological training courses?

What approach does it take?

Have you been on it and did it work well?

I must confess that I spend far too much time looking at the “coming soon” pages on various publishers websites, planning what I will buy and read next after I have finished (!) the huge mountain of books by my bedside.

Baker Academic were always one of the worst for making it easy to find what was coming soon, and keeping it up to date, but they have recently redeemed themselves by posting a comprehensive guide to their forthcoming releases in the format of three PDFs.

Here’s what’s on my shopping list…

Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament edited by G. K. Beale & D. A. Carson. I’ve heard rumours about this one for years, and it finally is set to appear in Nov 2007. At 1,152 pages and with a very distinguished list of contributors this is surely set to become the standard work looking at OT use in the NT.

Baker Exegetical Commentary on Acts by Darryl Bock. Coming in October 2007 this is a welcome follow-on from the man who wrote what is widely recognised as the premier evangelical work on Luke.

Baker Exegetical Commentary on Matthew by David Turner (Feb 2008). I don’t know much about David Turner, but the BEC commentary series is rapidly becoming one of my favourites. Combined with R T France’s recent volume on Matthew in the NICNT series, this is a good time to be studying the first gospel.

Reformed and Always Reforming by Roger E Olson (Oct 2007). This is one of those books that could go either way. It is subtitled “a postconservative approach to evangelical theology” and looks at the contributions of theologians such as Grenz, Vanhoozer, Pinnock and Volf. I’ve come across postevangelical, postchristian and postcharismatic, but postconservative is a new one on me.

Spiritual Formation as if the Church Mattered by James Wilhoit (Feb 2008). Another book with an arresting title. The point seems to be that much writing on “spiritual formation” focuses on the individual Christian’s discipleship with little or no reference to the church.

Central Themes in Biblical Theology edited by Scot Hafemann and Paul House. This covers seven themes in 336 pages – “The Covenant Relationship”, “The Commands of God”, “The Atonement”, “The Servant of the Lord”, “The Day of the Lord”, “The People of God” and “The History of Redemption”. This looks like it would be good as a reference to use for an overview of these subjects that repeatedly crop up throughout the Bible.

The Jesus Legend by Paul Rhodes Eddy and Gregory Boyd. Subtitled “A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition”, this comes with glowing reviews from historical Jesus heavyweights such as Richard Bauckham and Craig Evans. It looks like a genuinely useful contribution to the debate although at 480 pages it may be too long for the casual reader to tackle.

The Evolution Controversy by Thomas Fowler and Daniel Kuebler. This book is designed to present the different sides in the debate rather than to argue for one particular position. I’ve been looking for a book that will do this for a while, as I have not kept up to date understanding all the different approaches found amongst evangelicals.

Getting to Know the Church Fathers, An Evangelical Introduction by Bryan Litfin (Oct 2007) looks like it will be a good way to start learning about the church fathers from an evangelical perspective, getting the basic facts on their lives and teaching without getting too bogged down by the sheer volume of their writings (I got Augustine’s City of God recently and it is huge!).