Tag: NT Wright
0 What the Gospels are NOT About
What the Gospels Are NOT About
To say the Gospels aim at telling a story from beginning to end with a single, primary ‘point’ is also to argue that there things the Gospels are not (primarily, least) about.
I’m reading NT Wright’s new book, How God Became King, in which Wright argues that for most of its history Western Christianity has missed the plot and point the Gospels writers intended to convey in their story. The story the Gospels tell, Wright says, is one in which God in Christ becomes King of Earth as in Heaven. This is why the Gospels give so much space to Jesus’ Kingdom teaching. Ascension then is less denouement than climax.
But if this is what the Gospels are about then the Gospels are not about other, commonly assumed things:
Going to Heaven
The Gospels tell a story not where people go to heaven when they die but where God’s people pray for the Kingdom of Heaven to be brought to Earth.
Jesus’ Ethical Teachings
The Gospels do not tell a story of Jesus the Teacher whose career was upended by those who didn’t like what he had to say. Jesus was not, as we like to think today, a 1st century Jewish analogue to the Buddha or Ben Franklin. Jesus wasn’t offering a teaching as we think of it, as a set of ideals or precepts. Jesus’ teachings were a part of his Kingdom announcement: that through him a whole new world was drawing near.
Jesus, the Moral Exemplar
In the same way the Gospels do not tell teachings, the Gospels do not tell a story primarily about a Jesus whose perfect holiness, faith and love show us how we should live and be. If this were the story the Gospels tell then they’re failures, Wright says, because none of us can possibly hope to live according to his exceedingly perfect example. The Gospels cannot be reduced to Jesus showing us how its done.
Jesus, the Perfect Sacrifice
This is the most difficult assumption to undo because the notion of Jesus dying for our sin is the single most common definition of what Christians mean by ‘gospel.’ But if the Gospels aim to tell the same story that Paul tells then they fail because it’s not at all obvious the Gospels are trying to tell a story of Jesus, the victim without blemish, dying as a sacrifice for our sin.
Proving Jesus’ Divinity
Many assume that the purpose of the Gospels was to prove Jesus’ divinity. The Gospels though don’t try to prove his divinity, they simply presuppose it. Getting back to what Wright sees as the Gospels primary story, the Gospels’ understanding of Jesus’ divinity is wrapped up with the Kingdom Jesus ushers in to our world.
5 Does Being ‘Biblical’= Being Pauline?
Does Being ‘Biblical’= Being Pauline?
I’ve started reading NT Wright’s book, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels. In some ways it’s a continuation of his work in Simply Jesus.
Wright’s overarching premise is how Christianity in the West has largely forgotten what the Gospels are about. Christians of all traditions and across the theological spectrum tend to read the Gospels episodically or we read them to buttress theological perspectives we bring to the texts. We do not- and haven’t since the ancient church, Wright contends- read the Gospels, asking the question: ‘What overall story does this Gospel think its telling?’
Wright argues that Christians, especially since the Reformation, have construed the ‘gospel’ in terms of atonement and justification; meanwhile, the story the Gospels attempt to tell is how God in Christ is King of the Earth as in Heaven. The extent to which Jesus’ ascension has become a neglected text and holy day supports Wright’s assertions, and just on a literary level it’s a good charge to level. There are no other narratives we could read where how the authors constructed the beginning, middle and end are incidental to the authorial ‘point.’ It’s not a trivial detail that the Gospels conclude with Jesus’ enthronement nor is it of little consequence that Luke ends the Gospel with Jesus’ ascension and then Luke’s Acts picks up with the disciples living in the form of this new Kingdom, on earth as in heaven.
Whatever one’s theology, Wright thinks it problematic that most Christians can articulate a definition of the gospel that need not make any reference to the actual Gospels. Our definitions of the Gospel center on terms like atonement and justification, terms that feature prominently in Paul but are not in the Gospels themselves and are certainly not their main theme. In the same way, Wright notes a commonly observed problem with the creeds; namely, that they skip from Jesus’ birth to his death and resurrection and leave out the bulk of the Gospel story.
Instead of shaping our definition of ‘gospel’ by asking what story the Gospels are attempting to tell, we use the Gospels, Wright says, to illustrate arguments derived from Paul. By doing so, Christians have lost the plot…of the Gospels. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Wright doesn’t ask the question but it’s there in his argument: Shouldn’t our reading of Paul be in submission to and in service of the Gospels rather than vice versa?
Is it the case, Wright wonders, that when we claim to be biblical we’re really being Pauline instead? And by neglecting the narrative arc of the Gospels are we actually being something profoundly less than biblical?