N.T. Wright

Review: The Vision of Ephesians

/ rtrube54 / Leave a comment
Cover image of "The Vision of Ephesians" by N.T. Wright

The Vision of Ephesians

The Vision of Ephesians, N.T. Wright. Zondervan Academic (ISBN: 9780310172505) 2025.

Summary: Ephesians as a vision of the church between creation and consummation as God’s small working model of new creation.

In recent years, N.T. Wright has been revisiting books of scripture on which he has written previously. He has written new, and briefer texts on Acts and a portion of Romans. Here, Wright turns to Ephesians, and as he has returned to it, has been struck with its visionary character. It reaches back to creation and before, and forward to the consummation of all things in Christ. And in the midst of all this are both the glory of Christ and of his body on earth, the church.

In particular, he centers on the vocation of the church. In chapters 1-3 of Ephesians he sees God’s purpose as displaying his glory through the church’s life. And then, chapters 4-6 focus on the mission of the church, accomplished through its unity and holiness. Rather than focus on specific problems, Paul offers an expansive vision both of Christ and the church. This may reflect the letter’s likely circular nature.

Wright covers the book in nine chapters. His approach is not verse by verse but by sections and paragraphs. Often, Wright will set the passage under discussion in the context of biblical history, the cultural backgrounds of second temple Judaism, and Greco-Roman culture. This background will often take up nearly half a chapter.

Wright offers some interesting insights. For example, discussing Ephesians 2 under the theme of the new temple, he observes how the new temple theme is what unites the “old” perspective of justification of verses 1-10 and the “new” perspective of covenant inclusion in one new man. He eloquently captures the wonder of the doxology of 3:20-21 that speaks of glory in the church and Christ Jesus, where we are “being thrust on stage to link arms with Jesus and take a bow before the whole redeemed creation.”

His treatment of unity portrays well a spirit-enabled unity amidst diversity. He gets more challenging as he moves into the realm of sexual ethics. While not explicitly mentioning LGBTQ+ persons, he writes of “a desire to be a different kind of human from the one you were born as. That is a form of Gnosticism, rejecting the goodness of creation itself. It is (as we all know) widespread in the Western world today, as distorted desires twist themselves into ever more bizarre shapes” (p. 105). No matter one’s stance on sexual ethics, many would regard this characterization as both pastorally insensitive and as a polemical caricature. In a brief commentary, dealing with a biblical text that does not address explicitly LGBTQ+ sexuality, it might be asked why this was included.

This contrasts with a much more thoughtful discussion of mutual submission in the household code material, recognizing how Paul, while not overtly challenging role distinctions, subverts them with the ethic of the one new people. Finally, in discussing the spiritual battle in 6:10-20, Wright helpfully observes that sharing Christ’s royal status in the heavenly places does not exempt us from battle. Also, how we fight is important, not with flesh and blood or earthly weapons.

There is much of value in anything Wright writes. Yet, I wish he would have gone into greater depth at many points in unpacking the text. Still, I believe Wright succeeds in casting an elevated vision of the church in the grand purposes of God. Many churches seem to think they can only be significant if linked to a political agenda. Wright reminds us of the glory we share with Christ. He points to our incredible privilege to demonstrate the grace of God and the new creation. What could be better than this?

Review: Paul, Narrative or Apocalyptic

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Paul, Narrative or Apocalyptic, Christiaan Beker and N.T. Wright. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2023.

Summary: Essays by two leading N.T. scholars representing the main distinctive views of Paul, either focusing on the age to come and the return of Christ to inaugurate new creation or the narrative continuity with the covenant fulfilled in Christ opening into the inclusion of the Gentiles.

Just to set expectations up front. If you were expecting a real dialogue between J. Christiaan Beker and N.T. Wright in this book, it’s not here. What you have instead is the juxtaposition of essays representative of the thought of Beker and Wright. In fact, Wright’s essay is excerpted from The New Testament and the People of God, from 1982. No real dialogue or responses to each other’s ideas.

That said, the essay by Beker, to my mind is the clearest articulation of the “apocalyptic Paul” that I have read. He offers a clear articulation of the apocalyptic centered around historical dualism (this age and the age to come), universal cosmic expectation, and the imminent end of the world. Contra the Bultmannian denigration of the apocalyptic he traces the renewed appreciation for the apocalyptic in Paul in recent scholarship. He traces the apocalyptic through Paul’s letters. He argues for the distinctive of Christian apocalypticism in Paul is the decisive new thing in Christ through whom the new creation comes. For Beker, nowhere is this more evident than in the resurrection of Christ, pre-saging the resurrection of the dead. Beker then focuses in on 1 Corinthians 15, noting the circular argument of Paul–the resurrection of Christ implies the final resurrection of the dead and if there is no final resurrection, then Christ was not raised, with the conclusion that no resurrection, no gospel. Beker explores why Paul sacrifices dialogue for dogmatism on this point, namely that this apocalyptic hope of the bodily resurrection is crucuially central and not to be compromised by immaterial views of immortality. As others have noted, we cannot have V-Day without D-Day, but likewise the resurrection signalled by the D-Day of Christ’s resurrection must be fulfilled in the V-Day of the resurrection of all believers.

The essay by Wright will be very familiar to readers of Wright. Without defining the apocalyptic, he considers it as a linguistic convention for the ways God would fulfill his covenant for a people emerging from exile. He offers an extended discussion on Daniel’s King who would come and the hope for the renewal of both the nation of Israel and the world and the development of a resurrection hope for the righteous. He then turns to the ideas of salvation and justification that would be held by first century Jews, namely inclusion in the covenant community. What Wright does here is not so much treat Paul’s reading of these ideas as the first century Jewish worldview in which Paul was immersed. Paul is scarcely mentioned beyond the essay title. If Wright’s assignment was to talk about Paul’s treatment of the resurrection as covenant fulfillment of the narrative arc of the covenant, Wright’s essay gestures toward but does not answer the assignment, something he does in his works on Paul.

All this makes me wonder how this book was put together. No explanation is given, just the two essays with notes and bibliography. The presumption is that the publisher saw value in putting this material side by side for readers but could not arrange a real dialogue between the authors. That would have been a fascinating interchange. What we have here are two essays on roughly the same subject matter where the reader is left to supply the dialogue. While that is a worthwhile intellectual exercise, I doubt most of us would do this as well as Wright and Beker.

[Note: A theologically astute reader observed that it would be impossible in 2023 to arrange a dialogue between these authors. J. Christiaan Beker died in 1999. This was not apparent on the cover or in promotional material for the book, but I assume responsibility for checking such things.]

____________________

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

Review: God and the Pandemic

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

God and the Pandemic, N. T. Wright. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 2020.

Summary: Reflects both upon our quest to know “why the pandemic?” and how we should then live.

Many of us have tried to make sense of “why the pandemic?” For some, we’ve resorted to conspiracy thinking, pointing to this country and that, this political leader and that. For some believing people, the response has been to see this as a retributive plague, God paying us, or others, back for their sins. This idea of retribution has a long history, expressed most tellingly in the friends of Job who contended that Job’s losses and sufferings had to arise from some sin in Job’s life from which he needed to repent.

N. T. Wright argues quite differently in this short book, easily read in an evening. Considering Job, and other situations, notably the condition of Israel enslaved in Egypt, the appropriate response was not “repent” but “lament.” Lament is the cry of dependence that doesn’t understand the why, but looks to God for both strength to bear up and for deliverance. It is the cry of “how long?”

Wright turns to Jesus and the telling scene at Lazarus’ tomb. He doesn’t engage in theodicy. He weeps, entering into the deep grief of the world. And then, foreshadowing his own work of the cross and the empty tomb, he bids Lazarus to come forth. In his ministry, the “sovereignty” of God, the coming of the kingdom is evident in the works of healing, the restoration of what was broken. This work culminates in his own crucifixion, death, and resurrection.

In the apostolic preaching, it is not natural catastrophes, famine, and plague around which the call to repent comes. It is around the person of Jesus, the one who preached, “repent for the kingdom of God is near.” The kingdom was near because Jesus was near. Then Wright turns to Paul and Romans 8 which he considers most significant for our response as Christ-followers. Noting our love of the beginning and ending of this chapter, he invites us to consider some of the less cheery verses of Romans 8:22-27

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (New International Version)

Wright comments on what this means in practice:

“It means that when the world is going through great convulsions, the followers of Jesus are called to be people of prayer at the place where the world is in pain. Paul puts it like this, in a three stage movement: first, the groaning of the world; second the groaning of the Church; third the groaning of the Spirit–within the Church within the world. This is the ultimate answer to those who want to say that the present Coronavirus crisis is a clear message from God which we can at once decode, either as a sign of the End, a call to repent, or simply as an opportunity for a standard kind of evangelism.”

He then turns to Romans 8:28 which he would contend may be best translated, “God works all thing towards ultimate good with and through those who love him.” Instead of speculation around sovereignty, Paul invites us to follow Jesus in the good work God would do in, with, and through us during this time. Practically then, Wright bids us to both pray where lament is prominent, and act in the manner of Jesus to care as appropriate to our station. He reminds us through a poem of Malcolm Guite written on Easter of 2020 and reflecting on the applause given health workers in the UK each Thursday that Christ is not locked down in locked down churches. A short excerpt:

On Thursday we applauded, for he came

And served us in a thousand names and faces

Mopping our sickroom floors and catching traces

Of that corona which was death to him:

Good Friday happened in a thousand places

Where Jesus held the helpless, died with them

That they might share his Easter in their need,

Now they are risen with him, risen indeed.

Malcolm Guite, Easter 2020, as cited by N.T. Wright

N.T. Wright wrote this book in spring of 2020. I’m curious what he would say today, after waves of infections, contentious debates in many countries about the measures to be taken, and the rancorous discussions on the internet. What is striking to me is his call to prayer and self-giving service is not one I’ve heard among Christians. We’ve deferred the latter to healthcare workers (many who are people of faith) who have the proper gear. There has been precious little prayer, perhaps only at the point when we learn of a sick friend. We are now in a season where the hope is that the virus will recede with the advent of vaccines and there is this unquenchable thirst to return to normal. I wonder if Wright’s book might be a good source of self-examination for us, helping us ask what kind of people we have been during the pandemic, and what kind of people will we be coming out. Will we be the contentious and the conspiratorial? Or will we be the prayerful servants of Christ, his hands and feet in the world?