“Why does a doctrine like the Trinity matter?” some ask. After all, the idea of one God existing eternally as three Persons is complex. A brief survey of Christian theology will show you that most heresies are heresy precisely because they get the Trinity wrong.

Even more… is it possible to completely understand the Trinity anyway? If finite human beings are unable to fully exhaust the teaching of the Trinity and full explanations are impossible, then why is it important to get the Trinity right?

Gregory of Nazianzus said in the 4th century:

“It is difficult to conceive God, but to define him in words is an impossibility.”

So words may help us along in our effort, but God will not be bound by them.

Why Bother?

When face to face with such complexity, some may wonder, Why even bother? If the Trinity is so difficult to understand, why spend so much time on it?

The answer is love. Those who love God desire to know Him personally and to know more about Him.

My wife is a complex person. I readily admit that I do not know everything there is to know about her. There are times when I simply cannot figure her out. But my love for her causes me to want to know her better.

If a husband sometimes has a hard time figuring out his wife, surely the human attempt to understand God will be even more difficult. But consider this: if I find great reward in growing in my knowledge of my wife, how much bigger will the reward be for us to grow in our knowledge of the Almighty God!

An Exercise in Love

Understanding the Trinity is not a pointless theological exercise. It is an exercise in love. We are plumbing the depths of the One who loved us enough to create us and then save us. Where our explanations and definitions fail, we go back to our knees.

Isaac Watts ended his Trinitarian hymn “We Give Immortal Praise” with these words:

“Almighty God, to thee be endless honors done,
the undivided three, and the mysterious one.
Where reason fails with all her powers,
there faith prevails, and love adores.”

Bernard of Clairvaux once said:

“It is rashness to search too far into [the mystery of the Trinity]. It is piety to believe it. It is life eternal to know it. And we can never have a full comprehension of it, till we come to enjoy it.”

Indeed. All theological reflection on the Trinity should have as its ultimate end the purposeful enjoyment of the Triune God.

In this 3-minute video for The Gospel Project, Matt Chandler explains the difference between a moralistic interpretation of the story of David and Goliath and a gospel-centered approach.

I love listening to pastors who exalt Christ everywhere they can as they proclaim the Scriptures. Christ-centeredness is one of the core values we are seeking to implement in The Gospel Project. (For more information, check out the website we launched late last week.)

In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul tells us four times to run:

RUN AWAY

1. Run away from sexual immorality! (6:18)

Run from sexual immorality! “Every sin a person can commit is outside the body.” On the contrary, the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body. 

2. Run away from idolatry! (10:14)

Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 

RUN AFTER

3. Run after the prize! (9:24,26-27)

Don’t you know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way to win the prize… Therefore I do not run like one who runs aimlessly or box like one beating the air. Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

4. Run after love! (14:1)

 Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and above all that you may prophesy.

According to Paul, the Christian life is filled with urgency. We flee immorality and idolatry and run with the goal in mind – loving God and others every step of the way.

There are a variety of ways to read the whole Bible in a year. I have found it helpful to read the Bible chronologically in order to better understand the flow and framework of the Bible’s grand narrative.

Union University professor, George Guthrie, has developed the Read the Bible for Life Chronological plan. You can download the plan in a two-page format here for free. If you’d like to go ahead and get a Bible that is structured according to the plan, you can do so with the HCSB “Reading God’s Story” Bible. It comes with a companion piece written by Dr. Guthrie – summary paragraphs offering some guidance for each day’s reading.

There is also a free booklet version of the Read the Bible for Life 4+1 Reading Plan. The plan is similar to the Discipleship Journal plan, but in addition to reading in four different places in the Scriptures, you read a psalm a day and cycle through the psalms twice in the year. Also, the plan is semi-chronological, placing the prophets and the NT letters in rough chronological order. This plan can be downloaded in booklet form here.

For other options, check out 3 story-focused ways to read the Bible, as well as storied approaches to evangelism (including the excellent resource: The Story of Hope).

Of the Father’s love begotten
Ere the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega,
He the Source, the Ending He,
Of the things that are, that have been,
And that future years shall see
Evermore and evermore.

Oh, that birth forever blessed
When the Virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy Ghost conceiving,
Bare the Savior of our race,
And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,
First revealed His sacred face
Evermore and evermore.

O ye heights of heaven, adore Him;
Angel hosts, His praises sing;
Powers, dominions, bow before Him
And extol our God and King.
Let no tongue on earth be silent,
Every voice in concert ring
Evermore and evermore.

This is He whom Heaven-taught singers
Sang of old with one accord;
Whom the Scriptures of the prophets
Promised in their faithful word.
Now He shines, the Long-expected;
Let creation praise its Lord
Evermore and evermore.

Christ, to Thee, with God the Father,
And, O Holy Ghost, to Thee
Hymn and chant and high thanksgiving
And unending praises be,
Honor, glory, and dominion,
And eternal victory
Evermore and evermore.

- Prudentius, A.D. 405

This post is from a Romanian pastor, friend, and former seminary colleague of mine, Ovidiu Patrick. He sent it to me a couple weeks ago, and I asked him if I could share it with others.

Grace.

Gifts.

Gladness.

Gratitude.

All these words are in a logical and theological order. In Greek, they all belong to the same family of words (charis-charisma-chara-eucharisteo).

GRACE (charis)

God is the author and the source of grace. Grace is the best thing that ever happened to man. Without grace we are condemned and lost in God’s divine court.

Grace is not a theory, a myth, or a beautiful idea. Grace is God’s favor for the lost. This divine favor is materialized in God becoming man, in the incarnation that we celebrate year after year on Christmas. Jesus Christ is the ultimate expression of grace.

The grace of God gives the condemned man what he does not deserve – eternal forgiveness and endless life – and does not give man what he deserves – eternal damnation and destruction. To be in God’s grace is to be right with God and to live a free life, free from sin that the law of God condemns and from which it cannot save you.

Grace saves. The law condemns.

Grace takes you out of all sin’s debts. The law shows the eternal debts that man has before God.

Grace has the power to change the man. The law is powerless in changing anybody.

Grace is amazing. The law is frightening.

The law shows you what only grace can do, but from God are both law and grace.

GIFTS (charisma)

Everybody loves gifts. Gifts are free, like grace. Grace doesn’t cost you anything, but it cost God all He had.

God loves to give gifts to His children. The spiritual gifts that He gives are indispensable in God’s economy. All the people of God have received spiritual gifts from Him. Throughout church history these gifts have been a controversial subject. The purpose of this article is not that of elucidating and clarifying each spiritual gift; it is not that of becoming a referee between Christians who do believe in miraculous gifts and those who don’t. The truth about gifts is that they always come because of grace. There are no gifts from God without grace. We cannot work for them, cannot bribe God for them, cannot choose them, pay for them, or insist so much in prayer before God hoping to incline His will to give them to you. The grace of God brings the gifts of God.

Sin took away everything we had, robbing us of godliness. Grace gave us everything we needed. The spiritual gifts are all we need. We cannot neglect them. Living the life based on the spiritual gifts brings fulfillment and places us in the center of God’s will. If a Christian has everything he wants, but he is not using his spiritual gifts, he will always be frustrated, stressed, and envious. Spiritual gifts are the real thing in life.

GLADNESS (chara)

Gifts bring joy in the house. Every house where you can find presents, you will find joy too. The lack of joy is either because we neglect our gifts or because we try to “steal” somebody’s gift. The spiritual thieves always try to violate God’s sovereignty over gifts. They are not enjoying what God gave them, they want what others have.

Christian life is abundant joy. When joy is missing, something is not right. Actually, joy is the objective and accurate way of testing your spiritual gifts. Stop imitating others’ gifts. Start rejoicing for the gifts you received from God.

GRATITUDE (eucharisteo)

Joyful people never forget to say, “Thank you.” Gratitude is a sign that you enjoy what you got.

More than ever before, gratitude is a missing mark of our generation. We are dissatisfied with what we have.

Gratitude is the sign that you understand grace. Grace cannot leave you in a state of ingratitude. People who do not capture the idea of grace are people dissatisfied with what they have, with their accomplishments. They always want more, no matter if it is money, physical pleasure, success, or influence.

But once you taste grace, you want more of Christ. In grace there is a continual gratitude, a peace that surpasses understanding. Grace gives you rest from all the things that exhaust you and never fulfill you. When you live by grace, gratitude for heaven is there because heaven is real for you; it is not just a wish, as the people in my country of Romania say, “I wish I can get to heaven,” “I wish I was saved, but have I done everything to deserve that?” Christ has done everything. The believer’s attitude cannot be but continuous gratitude.

The meaning and the order of these four words should capture our attention because they speak about what is essential in life, and we do not want to miss that. Where grace abounds, gratitude follows unceasingly.

We hear a lot about Paul, Peter, James, and John. But there are plenty of people mentioned in the New Testament that can slip by us unnoticed.

In Colossians 4, the Apostle Paul lists ten less-familiar names from the early church. Paul’s “shout-out” to these saints reminds me of the vast majority of Christians who quietly play important roles in the kingdom of God. Even though these mentions are brief, they contain life-long lessons for us today.

Tychicus – Encourage one another by speaking God’s Word.

Tychicus, our dearly loved brother, faithful servant, and fellow slave in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me. I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know how we are and so that he may encourage your hearts.

Tychicus had a job to do. He was to deliver news about Paul, as well as Paul’s letter to the people in Colosse. The result would be the encouragement of the Christians’ hearts. I want to be like Tychicus. I want to be a herald of the Word, so much so that it overflows from my heart at the right time and place.

Onesimus – The gospel turns uselessness into usefulness.

[Tychicus] is with Onesimus, a faithful and dearly loved brother, who is one of you. They will tell you about everything here.

Onesimus was a runaway slave. His name meant “useful,” but he had proven “useless” to his master, Philemon. Yet Paul commended him as a faithful and dearly loved brother, adding “he is one of you.” The cross unites what the world would keep separate. Early in life, Onesimus hadn’t lived up to his name. The gospel changed all that, and it changes us too. There is no way we can live up to the name “Christian” apart from the soul-sanctifying work of the gospel, the good news that takes useless sinners and turns us into useful co-laborers in God’s kingdom.

Aristarchus – Suffer with one another.

Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you…

Aristarchus was one of Paul’s companions in ministry, and here he is shown as a companion in suffering. We need people like Aristarchus, who stay focused on the kingdom regardless of the consequences, who rejoice with us in times of joy and mourn with us in times of trial.

Mark – Keep getting up after you fall.

… as does Mark, Barnabas’ cousin (concerning whom you have received instructions: if he comes to you, welcome him)…

Mark was the cause of one of the early church’s major splits. Paul and Barnabas disagreed over Mark’s desire to join them on a missionary journey. Why? Because Mark had been a drop-out. He had started out with them on a previous journey and then had gone home. This passage indicates that Mark was already restored to Paul. Mark fell, but he got back up. In fact, it’s likely that he wrote one of the four Gospels! The lesson here? Keep getting up. The righteous man falls seven times, and yet he gets back up every time.

Justus – Make your Christianity your first identity.

… and so does Jesus who is called Justus. These alone of the circumcision are my coworkers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me.

Justus willingly set aside his identity twice in order to spread the gospel. First, though his name was Jesus, he went by Justus, probably to avoid confusion with the Jesus he was proclaiming. Secondly, he left his own people, the Jews, in order to spread the gospel among those in Rome. Justus grounded his identity in Jesus Christ. He wasn’t first and foremost a Jew. Neither was his name unalterable. He was “in Christ.” What about you? What is your main identity? The Christian whose primary identity is Jesus Christ can cross cultures and boundaries on behalf of the gospel.

Epaphras – Contend for others in prayer.

Epaphras, who is one of you, a slave of Christ Jesus, greets you. He is always contending for you in his prayers, so that you can stand mature and fully assured in everything God wills. For I testify about him that he works hard for you, for those in Laodicea, and for those in Hierapolis.

Epaphras was a prayer warrior. Burdened by the spiritual immaturity he saw in others, he went before the throne of grace and “contended” for God’s people in prayer.  He wanted the people in his church to have assurance of the will of God, to know how to act. So he took these burdens to God in prayer. What a privilege to carry the spiritual needs of our brothers and sisters to God!

Luke – Use your occupation for the glory of God.

Luke, the dearly loved physician, and Demas greet you.

Luke used his occupation as a doctor for God’s glory. Who knows how many times Luke treated Paul as he healed from terrible wounds to his back? Luke didn’t use his own gifts merely for his own gain. He gave those gifts to God. We learn from Luke that our vocations are not separate from our spiritual life. We are called to do all to the glory of God – with excellence, with beauty, with zeal.

Demas – Watch out that you do not turn back!

Paul’s letter to Timothy informs us that Demas fell in love with the world and turned away from God. Something other than God captured his affections. Demas’ example serves as a warning to us. Watch out that you do not turn back! Let his example warn us against turning away from God and abandoning our faith in the gospel.

Nympha – Do what you can with what you have.

Give my greetings to the brothers in Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her home.

Nympha opened up her home and let the church meet there. She gave of her resources for the sake of the gospel. You may think you have nothing to give. But Christ can take the most ordinary thing and shape it into a tool for the advancement of His kingdom. He asked to use the boat of some fishermen, and that simple boat became a pulpit to preach to the masses. With a small boy’s packed lunch of bread and fish, Jesus was able to feed more than 5000 men alone. With a little dirt from the ground, He was able to heal the blind man. The borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea became the empty tomb that would prove Christ’s resurrection.

Archippus – Challenge one another to stay on the right track.

And tell Archippus, “Pay attention to the ministry you have received in the Lord, so that you can accomplish it.”

Paul’s letter to the Colossian church contains this personal challenge to one individual. It reminds me a little of an ordination service, where the pastor preaches a message that is directed to the candidate. Since it’s not a message for the whole church, people wonder, Why not give this message in private? The reason is because the whole church is supposed to challenge the candidate afterward to live up to the charge given him. Archippus is an example of how Christians are to challenge one another, sometimes in private, sometimes in public. We need the exhortation of brothers and sisters in Christ, in order to grow in holiness and faith.

Aristarchus, Archippus, Nympha, Justus… just a few of the Bible’s unsung heroes, “unsung” because they were primarily focused on making sure that the praises of Jesus Christ were sung by people from all tribes, tongues, and nations. When your most passionate desire is that Christ’s praises be sung, you too can be an unsung hero.

Janie B. Cheaney:

As it happens, this year’s Earth Day falls on Good Friday. I wonder if any connection will be made between the two while folks are planting trees or strumming guitars in consciousness-raising events. Probably not. In its short memory (this will be the 41st), Earth Day stays focused on the color green. But the Earth herself—if we can figuratively speak of “her”—remembers mostly in red.

We are not equipped to remember our own beginnings, much as we’d like to: the passage from warm darkness to chilly light; how we fixed on a face; the first words we heard and spoke. We don’t remember how we learned to stand and to fall, the exploration of hands and feet belatedly recognized as our own, the first glimmerings of personhood creeping up on us out of a fog.

But Earth—brooded over, spoken forth, watered, and greened—was full of memories better forgotten. For instance: a sudden darkness, a tremor in Eden, and the gravity of an angel with a flaming sword. The blood of a murdered brother, her first deep wound, made her cry out to heaven. But in the years to follow, with death polluting her fields and blood continually soaking her soil, who could keep track? The tally-sticks piled up and rotted away, as Earth grew old before her time, sunk into grief and despair and finally indifference. An occasional rumbling—fire on the mountain, a monumental voice, a whirling chariot—made her stir, but only briefly. She sighed, and trembled, and soon forgot.

As for her children, carelessly borne and carelessly begetting—they groped through their short lives calling on the sun, kissing hands to the moon, careening among the spirits, and flailing away at each other with clubs and swords. They were too many, too rough, too brief, too lost, and she would just as soon cast them into oblivion.

Until that one birth.

Keep reading…

 

In the Spring of 2010, the Wheaton Theology Conference brought together a number of Christian scholars to assess the work of N.T. Wright, particularly in regards to his books on Jesus and Paul.  The conference title, “Jesus, Paul, and the People of God”, indicated the framework for the two-day event: one day on Jesus, one day on Paul, and all of the talk was tied to how theology influences the people of God. Wright himself was present and was given the chance to respond to the other participants.

Nicholas Perrin and Richard Hays have incorporated the papers and Wright’s responses into a new book, Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright (IVP, 2011). The book attempts to analyze and critique Wright’s historical work, particularly as it relates to Christian theology. Though all the contributors are sympathetic to Wright’s vision, they refrain from merely praising his accomplishments and choose instead to honor him by offering a robust critique of some of his most prominent ideas.

Today and tomorrow, I will provide a review of this new book. First, we’ll look at the four essays that deal with Wright’s view of Jesus. Tomorrow, we’ll look at the essays that critique Wright’s work on Paul. My goal is to briefly summarize each essay and then offer a few reflections of my own.

N.T. Wright and the Historical Jesus

The first essay comes from Marianne Meye Thompson: “Jesus and the Victory of God Meets the Gospel of John.” Thompson focuses on a troubling inconsistency in Wright’s work. Wright believes in the historicity of John and has called for scholars to “discard the century-old shibboleths” that label John as non-historical. Still, Wright bases his reconstruction of the historical Jesus on the Synoptic witness alone, which leads Thompson to explore the ways in which John’s “Jesus” lines up with the “Jesus” presented in Wright’s work. She asks great questions:

• “Do we omit the Fourth Gospel in such discussions because it would somehow be taken to compromise any historical reconstruction?”
• “If John and JVG often make strikingly similar judgments about Jesus’ mission and accomplishments, what shall we conclude about either one?”
• “And does John’s approach to understanding Jesus suggest that we ought to rethink how Jesus is known ‘historically’?”

I believe Thompson’s critique of a John-less Jesus and the Victory of God to be valid. I understand that Wright wishes to play on the field of skeptical scholarship. He responds:

“Had I brought John into the equation without comprehensive justification, my principal conversation partners would have ignored the book.” (63)

Fair enough. But maybe the time is ripe for such “comprehensive justification” in the wider academy. Who better to make the case than N.T. Wright? As it stands, Jesus and the Victory of God, while commendable in so many ways, is of limited value for evangelical Christians because of John’s absence. Thompson is correct, however, to note the similarities between the Jesus we find in John and the Jesus we see in Wright’s work.

—–

Richard B. Hays offers an essay titled “Knowing Jesus: Story, History and the Question of Truth.” Hays offers the most strident critique of Wright’s work. He zeroes in on the question of truth and its relation to story and history. He seeks to establish clear roles for the Scriptural canon and church tradition in the hermeneutical task. The problem with Wright’s work, according to Hays, is that despite clear affirmations regarding the complementary nature of theology and history, Wright frequently suggests that the church’s faith obscures real history. Hays writes:

“Christian theological tradition is by and large bracketed out – at least at the explicit level – in Tom’s treatment of the evidence.” (51)

“Experience and critical history rescue us from the misreading of Jesus bequeathed to us by the church.” (51)

Hays believes that Wright shares many of the assumptions of the “historical Jesus” questers he is seeking to critique. It is Hays’ attempt to move beyond these assumptions that leads to this essay criticizing Wright’s methodological approach. Hays is concerned that Wright’s reconstructed Jesus results in a loss of each Gospel writer’s individual voice. He also notices Wright’s tendency to over-systematize everything through the framework of the “exile and return.” But it appears Hays’ biggest issue is that Wright sees the confessional tradition as a hindrance rather than an aid in discovering the biblical Jesus.

The two ways of studying Jesus come to the forefront in this summary from Hays:

“On the one hand, Tom insists that without historical investigation of the factuality of the Gospels, the story is vacuous, not least at the level of concrete action in the world. I insist, on the other hand, that without the canonical form of the story, we could never get the historical investigation right in the first place.” (61)

Of these four essays on Wright’s “Jesus,” Hays’ is the most important because it goes to the very heart of the presuppositions and assumptions that undergird the foundation of Wright’s work. From my perspective, I suspect that Wright and Hays are back to back fighting off opposing enemies. Wright is not setting a dichotomy between history and canon, but between a “kingdom-less” reading of the Gospels that fails to take into the historical truth already there in the canon. Hays is not saying that history matters less than the witness of the church, only that a resurrection-shaped lens of history necessarily shapes our presuppositions and approach to historical study.

—–

I won’t spend much time on Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh’s dialogical essay, “Outside the Circle of Friends: Jesus and the Justice of God.” Though creatively delivered, it is the weakest in the book. Keesmaat and Walsh take Wright to task for not situating the ethics of Jesus and the Victory of God more forcefully in the economic setting of the first century. Though Keesmaat and Walsh believe Wright has missed the focus on social justice in the Gospels, they are guilty of the opposite error: they find this emphasis everywhere.

The best example is their imaginative (I would even say “fanciful”) interpretation of the Parable of the Talents. According to Keesmaat and Walsh, the villain is the master, and the hero is the man who buried the money. Of the traditional interpretation, they write: “Our economic assumptions have dictated the hero of this story for us.” (81) Really? It’s more likely that Keesmaat and Walsh’s assumptions have dictated who they see as the hero. Otherwise, why are the earliest interpretations of the parable along the lines of Wright and the traditional view?

—–

Nick Perrin’s essay, “Jesus’ Eschatology and Kingdom Ethics: Ever the Twain Shall Meet” seeks to point out a blind spot in Wright’s proposal. Perrin believes that Wright emphasizes corporate application of Jesus’ commands to the exclusion (or diminishment) of individual ethics. Although Wright maintains that Jesus’ command to repentance has both a corporate and personal application, Wright most often states the corporate application. Perrin writes:

“Unlike the scriptural prophets, who as far as I can tell used the term repentance to indicate Israel’s duty to forsake a broad range of sins… Tom’s Jesus employs repentance in a specialized sense, by which he focuses his call very specifically on the issue of Israel’s violent militancy.” (107)

I believe Perrin’s critique to be spot-on. We can certainly be grateful for Wright’s reminder that repentance in the first century cannot be reduced to the lone individual feeling sorry for his sin. But to downplay or neglect the truth that Jesus’ call to repentance did indeed focus on the individual and every area of one’s life (not just nationalistic zeal) is misleading. So should we choose between a collective ethic and an individualist one? Perrin answers:

“It is only in correlating the individual and the corporate, the true Israelite and the true Israel, with reference to the resurrected future, that both of these attain their proper creationally ordered place and the extremes are finally transcended.” (112)

—–

The final essay in the section on Jesus comes from Wright himself: “Whence and Whither Historical Jesus Studies in the Life of the Church?” Instead of posting a lengthy review of this essay, I’d like to quote one of the sections in which you can see the basic outline of why Wright thinks the way he does. This paragraph illuminates the motivation for Wright’s historical work, and it explain why so many evangelicals (like myself) have found his work on Jesus and the resurrection to be helpful in many ways:

“Remember the slogan of Melanchthon in the sixteenth century: it isn’t enough to know that Jesus is a Savior; I must know that he is the Savior for me. I agree with Melanchthon, but I think we have to say it the other way round as well. We must today stress that it isn’t enough to believe that Jesus is “my Savior” or even “my Lord”; you must know who Jesus himself was and is. Without that, merely saying that we have Jesus “within our heart” or that we “have a sense that Jesus loves me” or whatever can easily turn into mere fantasy, wish fulfillment. That has happened before, and it will happen again, unless it is earthed in actual historical reality.

In order to know that you’re not just making it up, not fooling yourself… you must be able to say that this Jesus, who we know in prayer, this Jesus we meet when we are ministering to the poorest of the poor, this Jesus we recognize in the breaking of the bread, this Jesus is the same Jesus who lived and taught and loved and died and rose again in the first century. We must believe and confess that he did indeed inaugurate God’s kingdom, die to bring it about and rise again to launch the consequent new creation. We must know who Jesus himself actually was and is.

“Generations of skeptics have swept Jesus aside in their efforts to prove that Christianity is a dangerous delusion. Richard Dawkins is only one of many examples. We have to be able to provide proper, well-grounded answers.” (119)

This paragraph shines light on the area I believe Wright’s work to be most useful: apologetics. Wright wants to provide proper, well-grounded answers to the skeptics who dismiss Jesus and the Christians who don’t know much about him. Furthermore, he wants to make sure that the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are one and the same. Noble goals, even if Wright doesn’t always attain them.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at how these scholars assess N.T. Wright’s “Paul.”

Jonah is best known for being the prophet who ran from God and was swallowed by a huge fish. But the point of Jonah’s story isn’t a simple morality tale: “Watch out! If you run from God, He’ll get you back… and it won’t be pretty.”

Instead, we see in Jonah’s life the contrast between the self-preserving actions of a prophet and the self-sacrificing actions of our missionary God.

We first meet Jonah in 2 Kings 14. King Jeroboam restored Israel’s border “according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, had spoken through His servant, the prophet Jonah…” (v. 25). Jonah was a son of Israel given a word from God about the distinction between God’s people and the outside world. Jonah’s message was encouraging: “God loves Israel enough to fortify the borders that will defend us from those who would oppress us.”

Next, God told Jonah to go to Nineveh. This time, the message wasn’t an encouraging word for God’s people; it was a message of judgment to wicked Nineveh. The Ninevites had earned a reputation for brutality and terrorism. When it came to Nineveh, prophets weren’t lining up before God, saying, “Pick me! Pick me!”

But God cared enough for Nineveh to warn them about the coming judgment. Jonah was the messenger God chose.

Jonah’s earlier role had been on defense: he built up the borders between God’s people and the world. This time, Jonah was on offense: he was to enter enemy territory and command a very wicked people to repent. No wonder Jonah got on a boat and headed in the opposite direction.

God didn’t leave Jonah in a state of rebellion. He intervened by sending a storm and a fish. Then, God issued the call again, and Jonah obeyed.

In response to Jonah’s preaching, all the Ninevites – from the king to the peasant – fell on their faces in humble repentance. Jonah became the instrument by which God orchestrated one of the greatest revivals in history.

One might expect the narrative to end with Jonah’s triumph. Instead, this book ends with a twist: God’s mercy made Jonah angry.

Slowly but surely, we realize the truth: Jonah hadn’t run away because he was afraid the Ninevites would reject his message. He ran away because He was afraid they would accept it! Jonah couldn’t stomach the thought that God might actually forgive these wretched people.

It’s easy to point the finger at Jonah’s small, unmerciful heart. But the moment we judge Jonah, we judge ourselves. All of us are naturally tribal, focused on ourselves, and our self-preservation. It’s God who breaks through our artificial borders and leads us out into the world with good news.

Jonah ran away from his enemies; Christ ran toward them. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Our tribal attitudes melt away when constantly exposed to the warm embrace of our missionary God.