Sunday, November 28, 2021

Wright on Galatians

 I've been reading Wright's new commentary on Galatians (AMZ). It's everything you could expect from a commentary by N. T. Wright. Vivid argumentation, memorable metaphors, engaging the intellect and the heart as well, and, yes, faith-building.

I was well into it before I realized this was a book I needed to be marking up--underlining, bracketing, side-starring. Now I read with pencil in hand.

I know folks who can't stand Wright, think he's a heretic, a danger to the church, etc., but I just don't see it. I have mostly read his more popular work, Simply Jesus, How God Became King, The Day the Revolution Began, Surprised by Hope, and have found them to be greatly inspiring. His understanding of "the gospel" and it's implications for our world is crucial.

Thinking about Wright's controversial opinions brings up a memory. I was a new Christian and had just started attending a Lutheran church (an LCMS church, to be precise). An older woman gave me a verse-by-verse commentary on Mark, one that was put out by the denom's on publishing wing, to get me started thinking about the Scriptures in the approved way.

I quickly soured on the book, though, because it had literally only one take-away for every single verse of Mark. That was of course: we're saved by faith and not by works!

Even as a baby Christian I knew that that couldn't be right. I could see that the commentary was grinding its nearly 5-centry old axe, sticking it to the Catholics. I suspected that the author of the Gospel of Mark was probably not focused on the same thing Luther was focused on 15 centuries later, and I suppose that made me a budding Wrightian right off the bat!

Anyway, a fine commentary. I highly recommend it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

N.T. Wright believes in replacement theology. He believes the Abrahamic Covenant was fulfilled by Yeshua and any blessings, once given to Israel, now belong to the church. Wright, like Augustine, Chrysotym and so many others uses spiritual gymnastics to arrive at his theological conclusions. Wright is brilliant in many respects, but to agree with him theologically is to call God a liar. God's covenants are eternal..... eternal means forever. Is God a liar? N.T. Wright thinks so.