Simply Good News by N.T. Wright (Brief Book Review)

Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good by N.T. Wright
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wright starts off by defining the word gospel (good news) as how it would mean to first century people. For many today the gospel is good advice (believe this and you’ll go to heaven when you die) rather than good news. But, the gospel really is news, and that’s how we should present it.

The good news is that Jesus has become king and He is now restoring the world. He’s not going to whisk us all away to heaven and destroy the world. Jesus started this restoration at the cross and will complete it at the last day. N.T. Wright uses an example of a Roman emperor defeating his enemy and taking power. The news of this would be good to all who support this emperor, and they would be happy to hear that he was now in charge. But first, the emperor would have to consolidate his power before taking his throne. So, the good news of his coming to power would include both something that had happened (the defeat of his enemy) and something that would happen (his coming full rule).

We today are living in that between time. Jesus defeated sin and death at the cross, and now His enemies are being put under His feet, and He will one day come and complete the work He has begun of building His kingdom on earth.

Wright also discusses misunderstood concepts people have today about God (and His anger), sin, hell, eschatology, atonement, creation, covenant, rationalism, and romanticism.

I highly recommend this one.

An excerpt…

Most people who regard the statement that Jesus died in your place as the center of the gospel place this truth, this beautiful fragment, into a larger story that goes like this. There is a God, and this God is angry with humans because of their sin. This God has the right, the duty, and the desire to punish us all. If we did but know it, we are all heading for an eternal torment in hell. But this angry God has decided to vent his fury on someone else instead — someone who happens to be completely innocent. Indeed, it is his very own son! His wrath is therefore quenched, and we no longer face that terrible destiny. All we have to do is believe this story and we will be safe. That is the reconstructed scene offered in many churches, sermons, and books. It is not completely wrong. But as it stands, it is deeply misleading. It distorts the very thing it is trying to frame. It takes the truth that Jesus died in your place and puts it in the wrong context. It does indeed make some sense there. But this is not the same sense that it would make if you put it the right context. This, in anyone’s account, is near the heart of what the early Christians meant by the good news. Since it is also, clearly, near the heart of what many Christians today understand by the good news, it is important that we sort this out.
~Page 68 or Location 976 (Kindle)

* You can take an online course on this book taught by N.T. Wright for (I think) $29USD.
Click here for that.

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Bible Theology Basics

Here are some excellent articles by James Jordan regarding the basics of bible theology. This is not systematic theology. This is looking at the bible and letting it teach us directly what it is saying. Although the word ‘basic’ is used, you might be surprised at what you’ll learn from reading these articles.

There are eight articles to be read in succession. Here are the links…

Biblical Theology Basics #1

Biblical Theology Basics #2

Biblical Theology Basics #3

Biblical Theology Basics #4

Biblical Theology Basics #5

Biblical Theology Basics #6

Biblical Theology Basics #7

Biblical Theology Basics #8

Don’t Put the Symbol Before the Horse

In Genesis, the creation account talks about the passage of days before the sun was created. There was a light time and a dark time: a full day.

Now, when God did create the sun, He did not then spin the earth, wait to see how long it took to spin once, and then decide to make a day 24 hours long. God determined that a day would be 24 hours long before He made the first day. The sun and the rotation of the earth were set to conform to what God had already determined. We need to be sure we don’t get that backward.

It is the same with biblical symbolism. Biblical symbols are not like Forest Gump’s box of chocolates. Forest wanted to describe life, so he chose an object close at hand and used it. The object he chose was not created to be a symbol for life, but it was able to be used as such with some imagination. Biblical symbols, however, are specifically created to represent something else that already exists.

An example is marriage. When God wanted to describe the relationship between Christ and the Church, He did not say, “The relationship between Christ and the Church is like marriage,” in a ‘Forest Gump box of chocolates’ kind of way. No, God created marriage because the concept of the relationship between Christ and the Church already existed, and marriage is an image of that pre-existing reality. This is the first reason why Christians oppose gay marriage. Jesus isn’t marrying another Jesus, therefore men don’t marry men — the created symbol has to follow what it’s imaging of the Creator.

When a man is opposed to the idea of a woman being a pastor, it is not because he is a male chauvinist. Rather, it is because he believes that gender matters. Gender is symbolic; not in a ‘box of chocolates’ kind of way, but in a ‘something pre-exists about God and this is an image of that’ kind of way. A man standing before his congregation is a symbol of Christ standing before His bride. A man protecting his church is a symbol of Christ protecting His wife. A woman can not do that; not because she isn’t smart enough, or talented enough, but because she doesn’t fit the symbol. The ‘Beauty and the Beast’ story would quickly lose its appeal if the beauty decided to switch roles with the beast — the symbols wouldn’t match.

Bread and wine exist because they image pre-existing things about God. Baptism, circumcision, the temple, birds, trees, clouds, stars, and even people themselves are symbols following after something which was real before any of them ever existed. Biblical symbols are directly connected to that which they image. Gump’s box of chocolates is not.

Symbols matter. They are not interchangeable. God sets them in place, and we benefit when we follow them and use them as He intended.

The Three Part Great Commission

We can assign three parts to the Great Commission.

1) Preach the Gospel as a witness to all the nations.

2) Make individual disciples in each nation.

3) Make whole nations disciples.

I think many christians would read #1 and stop there. I’ve had christians declare to me that the end is near because the gospel has been preached throughout the whole world, and Jesus said, “(T)his gospel…will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14)

I would argue against that reasoning, firstly and simply because, the Great Commission, as given to us in Matthew 28:18-20, does not say “go and preach the gospel as a witness to all nations.” It says to “go and make disciples of all nations.” There is a large difference between getting the gospel out there to be heard (a witness) and getting whole nations of people to conform their entire lives to it (discipleship).

Secondly, I would argue that, with the statement Jesus made in Matthew 24, He was not referring to the Great Commission, nor was He referring to the end of the world. Again, His wording did not imply the fullness of the Great Commission when He referred to the gospel as going out as a witness to all nations; that is part of the Great Commission, yes, but only the first part. Also, when Jesus used the word “world” in vs 14 (through the Holy Spirit inspired author), He used the Greek word oikoumené, which means “the portion of the earth inhabited by the Greeks, in distinction from the lands of the barbarians”; so arguably, He was referring to the Roman Empire only, not the entire planet 2000 years into the future.

The conversation in Matthew 24 between Jesus and the disciples was about the destruction of the temple, or more broadly, the end of the Judaic age, temple sacrifice, and the Mosaic priesthood. When Jesus said the gospel would go out to all the Roman Empire and then the end would come, I would argue that He was primarily thinking about all the Jews scattered throughout the empire at that time. Jesus wanted the Jews to hear the gospel before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. He wanted them to understand what was happening and why the temple was destroyed. It was destroyed because there was no longer any need for it and because judgment had come on the unbelieving Jews. The “end” which Jesus referred to is that destruction and judgement.

So, back to the Great Commission. Jesus said that all authority has been given to Him, and that is the reason we are to go out and make disciples of all nations. He did not say, “People are dying and going to hell, so go and preach to as many as possible and then I’ll come back”. Jesus is king, and we are to declare that fact to the world, and teach people how to serve the king. To do this, we have to do all three parts of the Great Commission. We can’t stop after #1 thinking we’ve finished the job. The bible does not teach that or allow it.

Victorious Eschatology (Book Review)

This book is what I’d call a “nuts and bolts” approach to eschatology. Other books I’ve read on the subject take a more broad look at Biblical prophesy and try to give the overall sense of what the big story of the Bible is without making any definitive statements. This book takes the reader through a verse by verse exposition of the prophesies and the authors are not afraid to come to some profound conclusions.

I enjoyed this book a lot, and while I am still kicking the tires of the different eschatological view points, this book seriously pushed me in some new directions. It is interesting that a lot of Christians will just assume that what they’ve always heard is true. Premillennial Dispensationalism is true, right? Well, read this book and you might change your thoughts on the subject. Or, perhaps, it’ll newly get you thinking on eschatology when you’ve never considered the topic a worthwhile use of your time.

The viewpoint is a partial preterist one. Preterism is the opposite of futurism, and so, in this book, the authors argue that much of the Biblical prophesies currently believed by many to not have happened yet, have indeed already happened — prophesies that were future for the original readers, but now fulfilled and in the past for us. No future anti-Christ figure taking over the world, no microchips implanted in foreheads, no secret rapture of the Church, no revived Roman empire, 666 refers to Nero, the Olivet Discourse mainly refers to the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 70 AD — these are the kinds of points you’ll find in this book, and the authors present a strong case.

But, as the title suggest, the main point of this book is to present a hopeful vision of the future. Jesus has already established His kingdom, His kingdom is growing and will one day fill the earth, and our future is getting brighter and brighter, not darker and darker. And before you cry heresy, understand that many prominent church fathers held to the same view as the authors of this book, and the authors quote some of these past theologians throughout.

Read the book if you want to be challenged and perhaps learn some new exciting things about God’s great plan for humanity, heaven, and earth.

Click here to buy from Amazon: “Victorious Eschatology” by Harold R. Eberle and Martin Trench

Click here for a related article I wrote about a similar book.