N. T. Wright

Review: Paul the Storyteller

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Paul the Storyteller: A Narratological Approach, Christoph Heilig. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802878953) 2024.

Summary: A narratological approach showing that Paul combines implicit and explicit narratives, making him a gifted storyteller.

In my biblical training, we learned to distinguish genres, with the gospels generally consisting of narrative, whereas the letters of Paul were examples of discourse. Of course, neither of this is strictly true. Furthermore, two key New Testament scholars, Richard B. Hays and N. T. Wright pioneered “narrative approaches” to Paul. However, they dismissed the idea of explicit narratives in Paul, observing “narrative substructures (Hayes) or “implicit worldview narratives” (Wright).

Christoph Heilig, while appreciating the pioneering work of these scholars, believes they are wrong in dismissing explicit narratives. He wrote a 600 page dissertation (in German) in 2018. This work follows the organization of the dissertation but is about half the length and in English. He takes the narrative approach a step further, engaging in narratological analysis at a linguistic, grammatological level. While he confirms the use of implicit narrative, he also demonstrates that Paul incorporates a number of explicit narratives.

He begins with a definition of narrative by Kindt and Köppe: “A text is a narrative if and only if it deals with at least two events that are ordered temporally and connected in at least one further meaningful way.” He shows different ways this may be done and discusses the interpretation of story, using biblical examples. Then in chapter two, he turns to the grammar of narration and all the ways events may be linguistically connected. This is not for the faint of heart, running to nearly 100 pages. Grammar nerds will love it, especially Greek grammar nerds.

Chapter three turns to narratives within the wider context of Paul’s works. Explicit narrative connects to a broader frame narrative of Paul’s letters, Chapter four then turns to implicit “protonarratives” in Paul, offering numerous examples of these. Then, in chapter five, he returns to Hays and Wright, confirming aspects of their proposals, and arguing for much closer attention to the way Paul implicitly and explicitly narrates. Particularly, he critiques Wright’s worldview narrative approach as focused more on overarching plot rather than building up from careful analysis of both explicit narrative and implicit protonarratives.

As you may deduce, this is a rigorously technical account, putting forth an argument for a narratological approach to Paul. In addition to contributing to a larger scholarly conversation, Heilig offers resources to enrich the exegesis of Paul’s writing, foundational work, first for commentators, and then for preachers. While it is not easy work, good exegetical work never is. I hope Heilig will build upon and model this work in a commentary (or two!) on one of the Pauline letters.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: The Challenge of Acts

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The Challenge of Acts, N.T, Wright. Zondervan Academic (ISBN: 9780310167990) 2024.

Summary: An overview of the book of Acts in four chapter sections, developing the major themes of the book.

The book of Acts is a long book. A commentary on such a book is no mean undertaking as Craig Keener’s four-volume work on Acts shows. Now N.T. Wright has shown himself capable of massive projects but takes a different approach in this study of Acts. Instead of verse-by-verse commentary, he offers an overview of the narrative that develops what he sees as major themes of the book. The plan of the book is to take the book in four chapter blocks, apart from a chapter on the opening of Acts, and a chapter devoted to Paul’s Mars Hill address.

The sections develop themes that will run through Acts. Beginning with chapter 1 on Acts 1, we see the command to take the gospel of the kingdom from Jerusalem and Judea to Samaria and to the ends of the earth, forming the plan of Acts. And then the resurrected King and Lord ascends into heaven, to rule at God’s right hand, present in his full authority as the church advances and faces adversity in its witness. Chapters 2-4 build on this news that in the risen Lord, God has raised up a new temple, a message the authorities immediately oppose. The Spirit empowered apostles persist in witness, determining to obey God when his command overrides that of human authorities. In chapters 5-8, believers are imprisoned, experiencing both deliverance and martyrdom. And the gospel spreads to Samaria (and Ethiopia).

Then chapters 9-12 serve as a bridge to the rest of Acts. On the Damascus road Saul encounters Jesus and finds his zeal redirected. Subsequently, with the church at peace, Peter accepts an invitation from a Roman centurion. And lo and behold, the Spirit of God falls upon the household, and the Jews conclude that god has granted the Gentiles ‘repentance that leads to life.’ Finally, after other persecution refugees testify in Antioch, with many Gentiles believing, brother Barnabas goes, affirms the grace of God and fetches Saul to help him.

The stage set, Antioch sends Barnabas and Saul out. And quickly, two things happen. People believe. And opposition arises. It becomes a pattern throughout Paul’s ministry. However, we also see authorities repeatedly acquit Paul. In Philippi, they receive a public apology for the beating off Paul, the Roman citizen. Then in Corinth the proconsul dismisses charges as a dispute about words, names, and laws, giving Paul legal cover for ministry. In Athens, the religious council at the Areopagus laugh at his ideas but do not charge him. And in Ephesus, the town clerk dismisses a rioting crowd. This will be important for what follows.

Chapters 21-24 cover Paul’s troubles in Jerusalem. Wright’s account struck me with the odd response to the offering and reports of the kingdom’s advance among Gentiles. Instead of jubilation, Paul is asked to pay for a cleansing rite to verify he is a true blue Jew. Then despite his diligence, a mob falsely accuses him. His defense is a proclamation of the risen Jesus. Then, in 25-28, we see his speech in Caesarea before Agrippa, once again speaking of the resurrection, that Festus and Agrippa can find nothing with which to charge him. But off to Caesar he will go, and after shipwreck will proclaim Jesus as Lord in Rome.

Two major themes come through. One is the proclamation of Christ as risen Messiah and King, the new temple and fulfillment of of the broadest hopes of Israel, that the nations would come to Yahweh. The other is the vindication of those who witness to the risen Christ, from Gamaliel in the Sanhedrin to Festus and Agrippa. Wright proposes that Acts may even have been a kind of “legal brief” for Paul’s defense before Caesar. In one respect, at least, the challenge of Acts is whether this movement is overturning the established order. Wright makes the case in his treatment of the defense on the Areopagus, that it was rather a setting of things to rights.

Wright offers a number of interesting insights. Sometimes, I wished for more evidence for some of his assertions. That is also the challenge of an overview of Acts. But Wright offers a resource for both personal study and for pastors and others who will teach this. He makes it clear that those engaged in gospel witness will face opposition from both human and spiritual powers. But in life and death, the risen Christ is with his people.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Into the Heart of Romans

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Cover image of "Into the Heart of Romans" by N.T. Wright

Into the Heart of Romans, N.T. Wright. Zondervan Academic (ISBN: 9780310157748), 2023.

Summary: A close reading of Romans 8, focusing on the purpose, presence, and profound love in Christ for all who believe meant to assure them of not only their ultimate destiny but of God’s favor even as they share in the sufferings of Christ amid a groaning creation.

N.T. Wright has been studying the book of Romans for fifty years, publishing both scholarly and popular commentaries on Paul’s masterpiece, as well as drawing extensively on Romans in his Pauline scholarship. This book reflects both the culmination of this scholarship as well as changes in his thought through discussions with his students.

The focus of the book is on the majestic culmination in Romans 8 to Paul’s arguments in Romans 1-7. Romans 8 is indeed the heart of Romans as central in the text of the letter and key as a transition from the argument of the first seven chapters to the discussions on the calling of Israel in 9-11 and the applicatory material of chapters 12-16. But what is Paul’s conclusion and how did Wright’s thinking about it change.

We have traditionally read this chapter is one of assurance of our salvation in Christ, as those not under condemnation, as those for whom God works good in all things, and for whom nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ. Wright would not disagree with these things, but has come to see something equally rich–the presence, power, and profound approval of God in Christ for us in the present moment. For many of Paul’s readers, even as is the case for many in the present day, the present is a time of suffering. Paul’s message is that this, in fact is their vocation, and it is one of sharing in the sufferings of Christ, that the spirit (Wright uses the lower case throughout) groans, intercedes, and empowers, and that Christians can be assured of God’s approval (and not condemnation) and God’s protection in life and death.

After introductory material setting Romans 8 in its context, Wright breaks the book into eight sections. For each section, Wright asks what the opening and closing reveals about the theme. He then looks at Paul’s connecting words to unpack the logic of his argument. He then looks at the contexts in Paul’s wider world, both Jewish and Greco-Roman, that provides resonances for what Paul is saying. A few insights I appreciated out of the wealth of material here:

  • Romans 8:1-4. There is no condemnation because God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus, fulfilling what Torah could only anticipate.
  • Romans 8:5-11. The spirit of the risen Christ enables God’s people in the present time to please God in our bodies.
  • Romans 8:12-17. Wright challenges the moralizing anthropology of our Platonic notions of heaven with the idea of our vocation in the new creation, already begun in which we are God’s spirit-empowered agents. That vocation is as fellow heirs with Christ, crying “Abba” even as we share in suffering, with the hope of resurrection.
  • Romans 8:17-21. “The primary meanings of ‘glory’ in this passage are, simultaneously, the glorious presence of God himself dwelling within us by the spirit, and the wise, healing, reconciling rule of God’s people over the whole creation. These two — God’s presence and human rule — are made for each other. They fit together” (p. 110).
  • Romans 8:22-27. We enter, perhaps most deeply into our vocation, as we enter into the world’s suffering, the groaning creation, enabled by God’s spirit to pray with lament and longing.
  • Romans 8:28-30. Wright challenges the traditional “all things work for good” translating it rather “God works all things together for good with those who love him,” particularly in calling, justifying, and glorifying us.
  • Romans 8:31-34. An interesting side note in this chapter is Wright’s questioning of the Feast of Christ the King, contending that it takes away from the idea of the Ascension as Christ’s installation as King.
  • Romans 8:34-39. The theme of our vocation makes sense of all the “bad” things of vv. 35-36 with the assurance that none of these will separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Wright’s situating of the assurance of God’s love, approval, and protection within the vocation of Christians as sharing in Christ’s sufferings in a groaning creation profoundly deepens our reading of this powerful chapter. This is not “happy-clappy” Christianity insensitive to the world’s struggles. It is not prosperous and privileged Christianity by the standards of the world. This is a profound word for Christians who have entered into the groanings of our world and for those whose faithfulness has led to suffering, that this is not their fault, that God is with them, and even praying with them in their laments. This is a profound word that there is nothing that the world or the powers can throw in their face or their lives to part them from God. Even as God said to Israel, “I will be your God” so God says to the larger human family in Christ.

Wright is not an easy read. It was a gift to read this with a local book group, particularly one with a member deeply familiar with Wright’s work (not me) who supplemented our discussions with background material from Wright. Thanks, Dan, and all my friends, who labored to dig out the wealth of insight in this book!

Review: The Apostle and the Empire

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The Apostle and the Empire, Christoph Heilig (foreword by John M. G. Barclay). Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2022.

Summary: Focusing on 2 Corinthians 2:14, Heilig argues for an alternative to either hidden or unexpressed criticism of the empire in Paul’s writings, proposing that we might also consider texts that have been overlooked.

Until N. T. Wright, most commentators on the Pauline works considered Paul to be silent on or even supportive of the Roman empire. Wright changed that with an article in 2000, “Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire,” proposing that subtexts could be found in Paul’s writing of an anti-imperial nature, referred to as hidden subtexts. John M. G. Barclay responded with a critique outlining five necessary conditions that would need to be met to accept Wright’s hypothesis that Wright answered in a chapter of Paul and the Faithfulness of God in 2013. A more recent paper by Laura Robinson questions the “hidden subtext” idea proposing that they are not hidden but just are not there, and that the concerns evoked by Wright about surveillance by the empire were unwarranted.

In this work, Heilig seeks to move the discussion to a new place. In addition to challenging Robinson’s assessment of the dangers Christians faced, invoking for example, the Pliny-Trajan correspondence, and the troubles Paul actually found himself in, he proposes the idea that Paul’s criticism is not so much hidden as perhaps, at least in some passages, overlooked. After mentioning passages like 1 Corinthians 2:6 and 1 Thessalonians 3:3, he focuses much of this monograph on 2 Corinthians 2:14:

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.

2 Corinthians 2:14, NIV.

A significant part of Heilig’s argument, overlooked in most commentaries, is the contemporary context of the victory procession of Claudius in 44 AD, celebrating his victory over Britannia. The Corinthians actually had an emperor cult that celebrated this victory. References to a triumphal procession would readily evoke this event in the minds of the Corinthians, not simply a general military practice. He explores the challenge to empire implicit in the reference God leading this procession, spreading the knowledge of the victory of Christ. Heilig argues that this, at very least expresses a sense of “unease” with the empire. He also suggests that this may be found even in the “clearest” of the passages on the empire, Romans 13:1-7, although I am surprised the author does not explore the standards for the just exercise of power implied in these passages, that is an implicit judgment against the much more arbitrary exercise of “the sword” in actuality.

In the last chapter before the conclusion, he decries the woeful state of access to the most current scholarship on context for biblical commentators, illustrated by the “overlooked” material on Claudius. I felt that, while this may be valid, I would have been more greatly helped by a discussion of further research along the lines of this work, and at least a preliminary overview of other passages where he thought criticism may have been overlooked rather than hidden.

That said, I do think this proposal offers new ground for work on Paul’s unease with empire and the realities faced by early Christians navigating Roman society, one that recognizes both Paul’s courage and discretion.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Advent for Everyone: Matthew

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Advent for Everyone

Advent for Everyone: Matthew, N. T. Wright. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019.

Summary: An Advent devotional with four weeks of daily readings and commentary by a noted New Testament scholar and pastor.

N. T. Wright has published a whole series of “…for Everyone” books including ones for each of the three years in the lectionary cycle. This focuses around the Advent readings for Year A in the Gospel of Matthew. The devotional includes daily readings for the four weeks of Advent, with translations of Matthew by the author, brief commentary, and a question or two for reflection.

I found this a rich set of devotional readings. At the core of each devotional is real commentary. That is, Wright concisely sets forward the meaning and relevance of the day’s text, rather than simply sharing an “inspiring thought that may or may not have any connection to the reading.

In this review, I will share one example, a brief summary from one of each week’s readings, that may give you a flavor for the whole:

Week 1: A Time to Watch: 

First Sunday of Advent: The unexpected visit: Matthew 24:36-44

Wright reminds us from a personal experience of what it means to have unexpected visitors. He then deals with this apocalyptic text from Matthew and its call for watchfulness for the Lord’s coming. He speaks of the dire prophecy, fulfilled at least initially, with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. He observes that the one taken, one left refers to those taken by soldiers to their deaths and those left untouched. Interestingly, the church fled Jerusalem before its fall, recognizing what was coming. Wright urges us to similar watchfulness in our own “turbulent and dangerous times.” And so we are invited into the beginning of this season of watching for the Lord’s Advent.

Week 2: A Time to Repent:

Thursday: The Parable of the Clean and Unclean: Matthew 15:10-20

Beginning with one of my favorite stories of Pooh and the Heffalump, he talks about Pooh’s concern that the jar of honey set to lure the Heffalump was real honey all the way down. From this he moves to the issue of purity and the challenge of Jesus to religious leaders who are pure on the outside and corrupt inwardly. The invitation is one to search our own hearts. For what need we repent and ask the coming Lord to cleanse in our lives? Are we pure all the way down?

Week 3: A Time to Heal:

Wednesday: The Raising of the Little Girl: Matthew 9:18-26

Every culture has hygiene practices and for good reasons. These enable us to avoid disease. For the Jews, you avoided a woman having her period or any other bleeding, and you did not touch dead bodies. If so, you went through ritual cleansing. In this passage, Jesus both permits a bleeding woman to touch him and takes the hand of a dead girl. Instead of Jesus being rendered unclean, the woman is healed, the dead girl comes to life. Here is one more powerful than whatever may pollute our lives, in body or mind. What might he touch and heal in us?

Week 4: A Time to Love:

Monday: Loving Your Enemies: Matthew 5:38-48.

Wright observes that Israel is a chosen people, yet overrun with enemies. He shows how Jesus offers “a new sort of justice, a creative, healing restorative justice.” It means a refusal to answer violence with violence. It means to go beyond the judgment of a shirt to giving one’s cloak, shaming the adversary with one’s virtual nakedness. It means to go beyond the mile Romans could impress one to carry a load, going a second mile, gratis. Wright asks with regard to our own enemies, “How does his teaching on reflecting the generous God and defusing violence speak to you?”

Wright’s devotionals focus on the wonder of this Lord who has come and is coming, and how we might watch for and prepare for that coming. His incisive commentary and questions are designed not just to engender warm feelings of “comfort and joy” but rather to call us into the deeper work of watching, repenting, longing for healing, and embracing the generous love of God.

This review may come late for this season. I’d encourage you to buy this volume, and the companions for Year B (Advent for Everyone: A Journey with the Apostles) and Year C (Advent for Everyone: Luke). Then you will have them for the full lectionary cycle. Yesterday, we lit the fourth Advent candle in our church, looking forward to the lighting of the Christ candle, the one who is the light of the world. These readings helped intensify my joy in what his first coming means and my longing for his return. The Lord grant you the same!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review e-galley of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Paul

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Paul

Paul: A Biography, N. T. Wright. New York: Harper One, 2018.

Summary: Wright translates his scholarship that gives a “new account” of Paul’s life into a popular biography, tracing the life and thought of the apostle through the letters he wrote and narrative of his journeys.

Over the last thirty years, perhaps no one has written more on the life and thought of the Apostle Paul than N. T. Wright, most notably his two volume Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Wright is associated with what is called “the New Perspective” on Paul. What he has done in this volume is distill his scholarship into a highly readable account of the life and thought of this apostle. Reading this, you will see some of the ways Wright casts the life of Paul in new perspective.

We see this in his portrayal of Paul’s Damascus road experience. He imagines Paul possibly reflecting on the vision of Ezekiel, perhaps praying the Shema, when suddenly he gazes upward…into the face of Jesus, whose followers he has been persecuting. Wright challenges us to see that this was not a conversion to a new religion, but the shattering and transforming realization that Jesus was the fulfillment of the scriptures Paul had studied so long–that he “had been absolutely right in his devotion to Israel and the Torah, but absolutely wrong in his view of Israel’s vocation and identity and even in the meaning of the Torah.”

He then traces the travels of Paul from the formative years in the wilderness and Tarsus where he rethought everything in the light of Christ, and then his successive journeys taking the message of Christ into Asia Minor, then later into Europe in Philippi, Athens, and Corinth. In the Galatian controversy with Peter and his subsequent letter, we catch the first glimpse of Paul’s transformed vision, where he sees both Jew and Gentile incorporated and included into a new people enjoying the blessing of Abraham’s faith. It is this that explains his methodology of teaching in synagogues, and then to Gentiles who will hear him and seeking to form new communities made up of those who give allegiance to Christ, and share table fellowship.

The biography offers some of Wright’s distinctive judgments on matters scholars have debated, southern versus northern theories of Galatians (he opts for south), and the origin of the prison letters, neither from Caesarea or Rome, but during an imprisonment in the latter part of his time in Ephesus. Wright explores this as a nadir of Paul’s ministry, both in the experience of prison, but also in the receipt of disturbing news from Corinth from those questioning his reputation. He proposes that this accounts for the somewhat disjointed style of 2 Corinthians, written after his release. He also believes that after writing this, he penned his magnum opus to the Romans, spelling out to a church where tensions existed separating Jew and Gentile, the purpose of God to include Gentiles with Jews as heirs of the promise of the covenant to make one new people.

Throughout, Wright explores the character of this apostle, who he describes as “bossy” on the voyage to Rome, and often troublesome in jumping into the fray. Paul did not let sleeping dogs lie. But Wright also argues, that like many “angular” entrepreneurs, it was these very qualities that, on a human level accounted for the success of this apostle in establishing these new communities across the Roman empire.

The work was a delight to read on many levels, as a reflection on the career of Paul and as an exploration of the relationship of Jesus and the hope of Israel revealed in Torah and the prophets. I savored his insights into each of Paul’s letters, and the vision of the church Paul articulated, that would sustain a movement long after his martyrdom, even as it continues to do so to this day.

Paul has often been maligned as a misogynist, as a heretic from his Jewish origins, and more. For others, we read him through Reformation glasses. Wright may or may not convince you otherwise, but this marvelous distillation of his scholarship will make you both think about, and hopefully rejoice in, what this apostle accomplished. And perhaps it will help you read his letters with new eyes.