Review: "How God Became King" by NT Wright

Last spring I purchased NT Wright’s latest book and had the great aspirations of reading it and reviewing it in 2012. I was able to do the former in 2012, but barely. In fact, it was New Year’s Eve, sitting in the Morgantown Starbucks that I was able to pour through the latter two thirds of the book.  In some ways, the reading and review of this book typified 2012. There were goals that just got away from me and so these goals need to be carried into the new year.

That being said, at last, I have been able to sit down and write a brief review of Wright’s book. The book How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels is a highly accessible book for people who have committed their vocations to the teaching of the Bible as well as to those who have committed their lives to being ambassadors of the Kingdom of God.

The book is divided into four sections with the fourth being a response to understanding Jesus birth, life, death, and resurrection as not only in terms of atonement for sin, but as the beginnings of God putting all things to right (including our own relationship with Him).

In the first section of the book, he deals with two extremes that currently exist with regard to the life and teachings of Jesus. One is to so fully focus on His divinity and His birth, death, and resurrection that one misses His life. The other is to so focus on His life, that one misses the meaning and significance of his birth, death, and resurrection. He also gives some proposals as to how this split has happened as well as the incomplete image both offer.

In the second section, Wright speaks of four areas of emphasis within the gospels as four speakers in a sound system that need to be brought into harmony. Two of the speakers are turned up really loud and play distortedly, and in many ways drown out the remaining two speakers. Wright proposes that what needs to happen for us to hear all of the fullness of the message of the gospels is that we need to adjust the balance and volume of these stories.

In the third section, he proposes what happens as the four speakers are properly balanced. A story emerges that is the story of Israel coming to it’s climax as well as the story of Israel’s God becoming king and making his presence with humanity. In this story, everything doesn’t quite look the way one would expect it to look, but part of the reason for this is the linkage with the establishment of God’s Kingdom through suffering, service, and taking up of one’s cross.

Wright further builds a case that in much of our modern readings of the Gospels, we have uncoupled the Kingdom of God from being anything of this world or having any place in this world, and as a result we miss some of the very real and tangible opportunities for learning not only from the life of Jesus, but also seeking to live life as ambassadors of the Kingdom of God in the here and now.

Unfortunately a review this brief simply does not do the book justice, so rather than try to write lots more, I will simply encourage you to purchase a copy and give it a read, along with Wright’s other writings.

And regardless of whether you read the book or not, I invite you to take a moment, and reflect on what life might look like in your neighborhood, in your job, and in this world, if God’s rule was reflected there? And what might it look like for you to be an ambassador of what it would look like?

Just a little food for thought for 2013.

E4 Fantastic Theological Content In A Portable Format

In 2003-2004 I had the privilege of participating in a series of intensive lectures featuring some of the great theologians of our generation. The intensives were part of a project called ‘e4’ and they varied in length from one to five days. Each class featured both lecture and impromptu Q & A sessions and was professionally recorded. And just recently, this content was made available in an affordable iPhone app format.

This app features a series of in-app purchases that enable the user to be able to learn from some of the most influential and thoughtful theologians and religious scholars of the modern era. Each module is reasonably priced as they contain several hours of video content of teachers like Dallas Willard, Rick Warren, Andy Stanley, Alister McGrath, Graham Tomlin, Gordon Pennington, and many others.

As an example, for $4.99, a user can purchase 19 hours of lectures from Dallas Willard sharing thoughts about spiritual formation, the nature of truth and a number of other subjects.

The app allows users to switch from watching video to reading while listening to a transcription of the lecture, and even has a feature which allows quotes to be tweeted directly from the app with the hashtag #e4app.

The lectures are divided into individual sessions of approximately one hour each so one does not need to download the entirety of the content at once, but can enjoy the lectures within a course section by section.

The app was created by a friend of mine named Pavi Thomas and features all of the content created during the series of e4 lectures in 2003-2004. He had a pretty incredible team of people working on the initial project with him, and as a participant in the classes and a user of the app, I am extremely thankful for the efforts of his team to bring together such a high quality tool, and to make it readily accessible to many for a low cost.

Overall, I highly recommend this app for its quality of content and its extremely affordable and portable platform. If you have an interest in theology, spiritual formation, media, science & faith, stewardship and/or apologetics these classes are an incredible tool  for learning.

Being a bonehead

I was just thinking this morning about some of the cool people I have met and taken classes under in the last three years, and I just realized--I should have gotten my pictures taken with them. Those are cool memories, and pictures are great ways to capture memories.

I take my camera almost everywhere, and I forget to take pictures in most of those places. I need to really work on that one.

This past week, I had a class with Alister McGrath, and last summer I was able to hang out with Graham Tomlin and Dallas Willard. I would have loved to have gotten a picture with them.

I could remember and reflect upon lessons learned and experiences gained through and since those courses more easily perhaps with the supplement of a photo.

My roommate nic takes some awesome photos--I look forward to the time he gets a digital camera so the world might see his skill.

What are some cool experiences you've had, that you haven't recorded in some way?

In my experience, recording those experiences helps to seal them in my memory.

MGM Studios

A convergence of worlds is taking place before my eyes. I feel a bit like Neo in the matrix.

While on the soundstage at MGM, I can look out a window in our lobby and see 100s of tourists walk by each day. I wonder if they even know we are inside the facility recording this theology class?

It's like I can completely see their world through the windows, but they have no clue about mine. Maybe it's like the old testament prophet and his assistant who saw the spiritual reality of the armies of the Lord while everyone else's eyes were oblivious to this reality.

There is also another humorous consideration to being on this set. In the same building as us, the "who wants to be a millionaire" attraction is bringing in droves of tourists. As we come out of the doors of our soundstage, I can't help but wonder if they think we are celebrities. I'm actually tempted to go over to these people being held behind a rope and sign some autographs just for giggles.

It makes me wonder about the perceptions we carry about others--what are legimate, and what are not? It also makes me wonder about our awareness. What events are transpiring around us that we are entirely oblivious to. What is happening just outside your house right now--what's happening next door, or across town that would shock us or thrill us?

Updates

Last week was much more packed than I expected, and this current week as allowed minimal downtime for reflection and writing. But, I had a window to share some of what has been happening in my world recently.

Mostly I have been feeling a bit of a crunch because much of this month has me travelling. I am currently in Orlando, FL on one of the soundstages at Disney's MGM Studios. That's right--you had thought it might be the case, and it's true--I'm a star.

Seriously, I am taking a class on Faith and Science and it is being recorded on one of Disney's soundstages. There is this big empty room (8000 square feet) and in the middle of it is our "classroom". Dr. Alister McGrath is our professor, and he is the former principle of wycliffe hall in Oxford (this guy is really smart--he has a PhD in both Molecular Biophysics and Theology).

I still need to upload some pics from vacation and other cool events, but that may have to wait until later in the week.