Wise words from Wright ( Paul: In Fresh Perspective ) about the biblical assessment of empire: “Things are not straightforward, by our Procrustean standards, in any of these books [Amos, Isaiah, Daniel]. When God acts to rescue the three righteous Jews from the furnace, or Daniel from the den . . . . Continue Reading »
Enns again: He admits that Paul, given the culturally assumed and conditioned conceptual framework he inherited from Judahism, believed that Adam was a primordial man whose disobedience was the cause of sin. Enns doesn’t believe that Adam is a historical first man, and acknowledges that he is . . . . Continue Reading »
What keeps us from doing as we ought? Peer pressure, sloth, fear, honor, desire to be liked, our own wants, wealth, selfishness. Paul’s word for this is “flesh.” “Flesh” is not a bad person living inside me. “Flesh” names a social and political order, also, . . . . Continue Reading »
Wise words from NT Wright, in his contribution to Horsley’s Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation : “It is . . . much easier to highlight Paul’s confrontation with some aspect of his world when the aspect in question is one that is currently so deeply out . . . . Continue Reading »
Until the Reformation, virtually all translations of the New Testament translated the Pauline phrase pistis Christou as “the faith of Christ,” that is, the father exercised by Christ (a “subjective” genitive), rather than “faith in Christ” (an . . . . Continue Reading »
Commenting on John 1:12-13, Calvin says “Some think that an indirect reference is here made to the preposterous confidence of the Jews, and I willingly adopt that opinion. They had continually in their mouth the nobleness of their lineage, as if, because they were descended from a holy stock, . . . . Continue Reading »
In a post last week, I suggested that there is at least a tension, perhaps an internal contradiction, in Wright’s view that justification is both a declaration that creates a legal status and a declaration regarding a preexisting fact; it both creates the status “in the right” as . . . . Continue Reading »
When Paul talks about justification by faith, he normally contrasts it with justification by works. But elsewhere in Paul, “by faith” is contrasted with “by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul is speaking of two different “walks,” but can the . . . . Continue Reading »
Famously and controversially, Wright argues that justification involves two dimensions, which he says were, for Paul, the same thing: the declaration that someone is in the right and forgiven, and the declaration that a person is a member of the covenant community. This formulation helpfully . . . . Continue Reading »
Vanhoozer’s lecture and now article on Wright emphasizes the central importance of union with Christ in understanding justification. He suggests the term “incorporated righteousness” as a way of getting at Calvin’s focus on union with Christ and the double grace that flows . . . . Continue Reading »
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