Theology for the Masses

This is what I have been reading lately:

Osborne, Grant R. The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. Rev Exp. IVP Academic, 2006.

I’ve had this book for a few years, it is really the best comprehensive work on hermeneutics around.  His Calvinism sometimes gets in the way, but astute readers will be able to ignore it.  I am working from this book in Parkade Baptist CYP’s current Sunday School series on Genre Hermeneutics.

Pierce, Ronald W., Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, and Gordon D. Fee. Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy. 2nd ed. InterVarsity Press, 2005.

This book is heralded as the egalitarian response to Piper and Gundem’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.  I have only had the chance to start a couple of the essays.  They have been pretty good so far.  I’ll talk about it more as I get more into it.

Piper, John. The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright. Crossway Books, 2007.

Disappointed.  All he did was convince me of Wright’s position.  Other people had built up Piper in my mind as some great exegete/theologian.  Not.the.case.

R, M. Daniel Carroll. Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible. Baker Academic, 2008.

Reading this for one of my classes – looks to be good, but I am only a chapter or two into it.

Stowers, Stanley Kent. Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity. 1st ed. Westminster Press, 1986.

Every student of antiquity and of Paul needs to read this book.  Hands down one of the best books in the field.  I am re-reading it for my class on Letter hermeneutics this Sunday.

Wright, N. T. Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision. IVP Academic, 2009.

Dang.  I can’t talk too highly of this book so far.  I wonder how many critics of Wright will read this book.  If they read it without their systematic glasses on, they might just change their minds. 

The righteousness of God pertains primarily to his faithfulness to his convent with Abraham, not that he seeks his own glory above all else.

But the great story of Scripture, from creation and covenant right on through to the New Jerusalem, is constantly about God’s overflowing, generous, creative love – God’s concern, if you like, for the flourishing and well being of everything else.  Of course, this too will redound to God’s glory because God, as the Creator, is glorified when creation is flourishing and able to praise him gladly and freely.

- Wright, Justification, p. 70.

The above was one small part of of Wright’s critique of the Piper/Reformed notion that God is primarily concerned for his own glory, which Wright rightly calls divine narcissism.  For Wright (and for God), διακαιοσύνη θεοῦ is an “outward characteristic of God, linked of course to the concern for God’s own glory but essentially going in the opposite direction, that of God’s creative, healing, restorative … love on undeserving people, undeserving Israel, and and undeserving world.” [1]

I think discussion by Wright is especially interesting in light of the Volf quote we talked about a while back.

1. p.70-71 [↩]