thejakers

I just can’t seem to get away from N.T. Wright this week.

If you’ve bounced around the Christian blogosphere you’ve probably at least heard about the justification debate between some prominent reformed theologians and N.T. Wright. This debate went fairly public when John Piper publicly responded to Wright’s book, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?, with his book, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. Wright has most recently responded with his newest book, Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision.

Rest assured the debate is not over, and is probably just heating up. That being said, I should preface that this is a single issue debate and that Wright is not only respected in these circles for his work on a number of other issues, he is also considered an authority. There’s no denying Wright is an important, well-thought of, and orthodox brother in Christ with much to add to the fabric of Christian thought.

I’ve yet to dive completely into the debate. I’m currently reading What Saint Paul Really Said, and find it interesting so far. If you want to get caught up on the state of this debate, this month’s Tabletalk Magazine, published by R.C. Sproul’s ministry organization, is dedicating its entire issue to the topic. You can read some of the issue here:

What N.T. Wright Really Said

That’s all for now. If any of you are more versed on this controversy, I’d love to get your perspective in the comments section.

I thought I’d post up another clip of N.T. Wright. This one has to do with how he views the creation accounts. I grew up in a literalist tradition, but I am now less concerned with whether the account is literal (six days of creation) or not,and have since moved to viewing the creation account as less a literal account and more focused on expressing aspects of the character of the Creator God and the creation, as Wright touches on here. I especially appreciate Wright’s insights into how God created the world as a place for his dwelling. This sheds such a wonderful light on this passage in Revelation:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (21:3-4).

This passage is in reference to the New Heaven and New Earth, and taken in light of what Wright is talking about is referencing God’s restoration and, even improvement, of his tabernacle–Earth–where he will once again dwell among his people. Beautiful thought, no?

So, I’m curious, where do you all stand on this? What are thoughts on Wright’s words here? Do you believe there is a direct connection between your creation theology and your eschatology?

An interesting post over at Out of Ur in a series on Heaven and Hell. Here, New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, talks about hell.

One poignant quip in the comments section:

“It’s a shame that Jesus didn’t have N.T. Wright around 2000 years ago to help Him express what He really meant about hell.
Then Jesus wouldn’t have had to grope around and use figures of speech like weeping and gnashing of teeth, unquenchable fire, torment in flame, broad and narrow ways, judgement and the like when apparently He really meant to talk about people declining to be part of God’s new creation.”

I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert on the intricacies of the doctrines of heaven and hell, but I have a hard time reconciling Wright’s (seemingly) watered down version of hell with my own readings of the scriptures.

What do you think: Is this because of my culturally western-stained mind (as Wright would claim), or because Wright’s account bypass the scriptures for a more philosophical explanation?