Beginning on p. 806, Tom discusses the issue of supercessionism (and the charge that his own approach to Paul is supercessionist). For those unfamiliar with this term, it has to do with the notion that the church has replaced Israel as the people of God, or even the church is the current phase of Israel as the people of God. Tom distinguishes three kinds of supercessionism: 1) hard supercessionism; 2) sweeping supercessionism, and 3) Jewish supercessionism. The first sort is... Read more

“http://seedbed.com/feed/acts-15-doesnt-mean-think-means/” title=”Arnold on Acts 15″ Read more

On pages 795-804, Tom begins to make his case that the discussion of God’s righteousness needs to be had in the context of God’s covenant faithfulness, as the two are intertwined. He is well aware that we have difficulties doing justice to the dikaio- word group in English, as it has various nuances that the words righteous/righteousness/justice do not convey in English. In this section Tom draws on his earlier book on Justification. It is also in this context that... Read more

As Tom begins his discussion of election, he freely admits that his view stands more on the salvation history side than on the apocalyptic side when it comes to analyzing how Paul tells the story. Tom is prepared to talk about the fulfillment of the story of Abraham, and indeed of the Abrahamic covenant. He is even prepared to talk about the choosing of Abraham having to do with the undoing of the sin of Adam and its effects, the... Read more

For the record, I know Brownies. I’ve even cheered for the Browns— for eleven years (1984-95) I suffered with their fans, attended games in the Mistake by the Lake, met Bernie Kosar and Ozzie Newsome in a Brown’s chapel service before a game, and in general came to understand the angst of pro football fans in Northeast Ohio. I’ve seen dog pound, disappointment and disaster all play out like Oedipus Rex by the lake. It’s been too long since Cleveland... Read more

For those who were impatient to get to the doctrines of election and salvation and how Paul viewed these matters, we have finally arrived there with the enormous Chapter Ten (pp. 774-1042), which Tom declares one of the central pillars of his whole project. Indeed, one could say this is the linchpin of the whole deal. Tom’s views expressed in this chapter have been heard in bits and pieces before in his earlier work (see for example his book on... Read more

Tom Wright is suggesting, that in a very real sense, Paul is the first Christian theologian. In particular he wants to stress that Paul had to rethink his second temple theology in light of Christ, the Spirit, and in particular in light of the cross and resurrection. Paul realized that if it took the crucifixion of the Messiah to deal with the fundamental human problem, then the problem must have been far worse than previously imagined. The problem could not... Read more

COUNTING THE WAYS March 24, 2014 By Philip Jenkins 0 Comments (Edit) Early Christians referred to their movement as The Way, Hodos. No later than the early second century, the converts’ manual that we call the Didache, the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, began by declaring that “There are two Ways [Hodoi], one of Life and one of Death, and there is a great difference between the two Ways.” As I have suggested, references to the Way occur throughout the... Read more