Church Life

Today is Ascension Day, when we celebrate Jesus’ return to his Father, the completion of his work on earth, and the fact that he is now Lord of all the kingdoms on earth.

Yesterday I listened to Doug Wilson’s third talk from the Auburn Avenue Pastors’ Conference. Less content than the first two of his talks there, but very worth listening to. His main point was that we don’t see, on the ground, a world ruled by Jesus Christ. And then made the point that we are better at

Well I would say that – I went there. But not everyone is proud of institutions they attended, and it is with some envy that I look at a college that has got stronger every year. How good it would be to start over again in 2007!

In last week’s Church Times (4 May) a letter was published by a recently retired DDO of St Alban’s Diocese. She picked up on some of the critical things that Tom Wright has said about the recently published book, Pierced for our Transgressions, and concluded that Oak Hill was not fit to be an Anglican Training College. Actually, she thought Oak Hill was not fit to train for Anglican ordination long before the publication of said book, but she doesn’t show that card in her hand.

Bailey’s article can be found here: http://www.theologymatters.com/TMIssues/JanFeb00.pdf. Significant because of the respect Bailey is increasingly commanding in Britain. Bailey has worked for 40 years in the Middle East, mainly in Syria. He has extensively studied contemporary Middle Eastern culture with a view to shedding light on the cultural background to the teaching of the New Testament.

Also N T Wright claims his own indebtedness to Bailey for the interpretation he adopts in his paper (see previous post).

If I'm right about 2 Corinthians 5-6, there are big implications.

A lot of people today make 3 moves. 1. Jesus is more important than Paul. I trust in Jesus. I'm saved. 2. Paul is misogynistic, 1st century, badly phrased, and slightly above his station. 3. But that is a secondary issue because of #1.

Instead, 2 Corinthians 5 says that a view such as #2 requires reconciliation to God. It is to turn your back on the offer of new creation, of sins not counted against oneself, of dying, of new life not to oneself but to Christ etc. To write off Paul's ministry in that fashion is not a secondary issue, but a central and gospel issue.

I suspect the end of Colossians 1 and the beginning of Colossians 2 makes the same point.