This am I sat through an incredibly bad sermon about death and resurrection. It was so bad that it actually helped to clarify somewhat the direction that my life could be heading. I believe that what we say in the pulpit really matters. Therefore I am beginning to believe that the best use of my life might be to teach those who are called to teach others so that they preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and not heresy. NT Wright has helped to point me in this direction and if I could imitate just a fraction of his ministry I would consider it life well spent. Below is just another sample of his work that gets me extremely stoked.
"At this point we need to ward off several frequent misunderstandings. I find myself not for the first time, in full agreement with Ernst Käsemann. In his famous 1953 lecture, which effectively launched the so-called “new quest,” he urged that without serious historical-Jesus study the Church and the world could re-invent Jesuses to suit their every whim.[26] That is the negative reason for engaging, as I believe every generation of the Church must engage, in the historical study of Jesus. Just as the Nazi theologians, Käsemann’s obvious target, had re-invented a non-Jewish Jesus so today people are inventing Jesuses who support all kinds of ideologies. And if we in the Church think we are immune from this, I would urge that we think again. Christians are alas, capable of all kinds of fantasies and anachronisms in reading the Gospels, and to pull the blanket of the canon over our heads and pretend that we are safe in our private, fideistic world is sheer self-delusion. It is demonstrably the case that where the Church has thought itself safe in its canonical world worshipping the ever-present ascended Jesus in prayer and the liturgy, it is capable of massive self-delusion and distortion.[27] Whether or not this reaches Docetism proper, without continuing attention to history we can pull and push the word “Jesus” this way and that and make it serve our own ends. It will not do, again, to sneer that historians always see the reflection of their own faces at the bottom of the well. Those who forswear historical Jesus study will find it impossible, ultimately, to escape seeing the reflection of their own faces in their dogmatic Christs."
Wright, Jesus and the Identity of God, Ex Auditu 1998, 14, 42–56
4 comments:
Cool and interesting! I'm excited to see where all of this takes you.
Me, too.
A professor and theologian friend of Mom's noted that "Tom Wright is the best orthodox evangelical theologian" in today's world.
I'm sure that teaching preachers well may require extensive practical preaching experience in order to convey credibility to your future students. You certain have some interesting options to consider!
I am not convinced that bad preaching is necessarily the result of inadequate teaching, but I am excited to see where God will lead you next. I know that you are well equipped to both teach and preach.
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