The Last Word 5

Continuing our journey through N.T. Wright's The Last Word, today we cover the fourth chapter where Wright describes the perspective of the early church on the Word.

Wright begins the chapter by looking at the early apostolic preaching which he describes as "neither a standard Jewish message with Jesus added on at the end, nor a free-standing announcement of a new religion cut off from its Jewish roots, but rather the story of Jesus understood as the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenant narrative, and thus the good news - the creative force which called the church into being and shaped its mission and life." This was the story in which the accomplishment of Jesus made sense.

In Romans, Paul described how the retelling of this ancient story which found fulfillment and climax in Jesus somehow carried power to change the hearts, minds, and lives of those who heard it. This power, which is described as God's power at work through the outpouring of the Spirit, called into existence a new covenant people, 'the restored Israel-for-the-world." The 'word' was not just information, not just agreed upon doctrinal truth statements, but was and is "the way God's Kingdom, accomplished in Jesus, was making its way in the world."

The church, known from the beginning as the "transformed people of God, as the community created by God's call and promise," was created and sustained by the powerful, effective and 'authoritative' word of God, written in the Old Testament, embodied in Jesus, announced to the world, and taught in the church." This was the heart of the church's mission, it's common life, the the call to holiness which would reflect both the true Israel and the new identity.

As the apostles began to write, they believed themselves "called to exercise their calling as 'authorized' teachers, by the guidance and power of the Spirit, writing books and letters to sustain, energize, shape, judge and renew the church." Those who read their writings quickly discovered that they carried the same power, the same "authority in cation" that had characterized the earlier oral preaching of the same 'word'.

Throughout the rest of the chapter, Wright wrestles with the early church's reading and application of Old Testament scripture. He argues that from the beginning, the church read the scriptures in a new way. They recognized that parts of the ancient texts were no longer relevant for their lives going forward - not because they weren't good or God-given, but "because they belonged with earlier parts of the story which had now reached its climax."

The early church was forced to quickly discover how to maintain continuity between the fulfillment of the covenant promises while recognizing that the new covenant was, in some senses, new and different. Wright gives a number of examples of continuity, including viewing the world as God's good creation, God's sovereign duty and promise to deal with evil, the covenant with Abraham as God's means for doing so, the call to holiness, and the renewal of genuine 'humanness'. The examples of discontinuity are myriad, including ancient Jewish purity laws (since Gentiles are welcome on equal terms), the temple and its sacrifices are not longer the focal point of God's interaction with his people, the sabbath and other rituals are no longer mandatory, etc.

Wright argues that since the emphasis is on the unique accomplishments of Jesus, the Old Testament could not continue to have the same role that it had before. Christianity doesn't repeat the earlier parts of the story; it celebrates the unique work of Jesus and builds upon it. Wright uses the illustration of travelers taking a voyage across an ocean. When they arrive at the distant shore, they leave the ship behind and continue over land. This isn't because the ship is no good or wasn't useful or that they had been misguided, but rather that the dry land portion of the trip required something different. Yet as they travel over dry land, they are still the same people that previously inhabited the ship.

This has implications for how we understand Scripture to interact with culture. Wright argues that we can never assume that any part of any culture is automatically to be endorsed or rejected. Much of ancient Jewish culture was embraced, as was much of the Greek culture, but much of both was also rejected. Wright summarizes: "The New Testament understands itself as the new covenant charter, the book that forms the basis for the new telling of the story through which Christians are formed, reformed and transformed so as to be God's people for God's world. That is the challenge the early Christians bequeath to us as we reconsider what 'the authority of scripture' might mean in practice today.