Unlike chapter 7 in Surprised by Scripture, where Wright took a look at a really big “worldview” issue, chapter 8 gets pretty specific and to a direct point. So what is “Idolatry 2.0”? It’s actually pretty simple: it’s the same old pagan idolatry, but without the pagan names. Let me let Wright explain… First, Wright…
***Let me first apologize for the long post, but it is such a good chapter! If you have read all my posts on Surprised by Scripture, chances are your head is spinning over all the things Wright covers. There’s a lot to digest. Well, when we come to chapter 7, I hope you’ve put on…
If you’re like me, you tend to play a movie-reel in your head as you read the gospels. We can’t help it—living in the age of movies, we naturally allow our view of Jesus to be shaped by the various “Jesus movies” we’ve seen. One particular scene that I think we all view the same…
In chapter 6 of Surprised by Scripture, N.T. Wright tackles the problem of evil: how can you reconcile the reality of evil with a belief in a good God? That is a question that has challenged people for centuries. If you were an ancient pagan, you wouldn’t ask that question, because you didn’t believe there…
I want to take a break from N.T. Wright, and take some time to comment on the recent scandal involving Planned Parenthood and their harvesting of organs from aborted babies for profit. Obviously, one of the key things N.T. Wright emphasizes is the idea of the New Creation and the redemption and transformation of human…
If you do any amount of reading of N.T. Wright, you will quickly see that one of the biggest things he emphasizes about the original gospel proclamation of the early Church wasn’t simply to argue the fact that Jesus was resurrection—although they certainly did do that—but that what Jesus’ resurrection implied about all of reality…
Should women be ordained as ministers? Should women have leadership positions in the church? Generally speaking, your answer to that question pretty much pigeon-holes you into one of two political camps: if you say “no,” then you clearly are a conservative; if you say “yes,” then you clearly are a liberal. This is a good…
In N.T. Wright’s third chapter of Surprised by Scripture, he asks the question, “Can a scientist believe in the resurrection?” In fact, this question does not need to be limited to scientists—it can easily apply to anyone who says, “How can any rational person be a Christian? We all know that dead people can’t come…
The second chapter in N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Scripture tackles a subject that tends to be an extremely hot-button issue within American Evangelicalism today: the historicity of Adam. Now, the fact that it is even a hot-button issue might surprise some people. Ironically, some people’s response is basically, “How can there not be a historical…
Quite obviously, one very important part of a Christian’s life is learning about the Bible: what it is, how to interpret it, and what role does it play in the individual life of a Christian and the corporate life of the Church. It should also be quite obvious that people do not always agree on…