SIMPLY CHRISTIAN - EXCERPTS 3

剛剛讀完N.T. WRIGHT所著SIMPLY CHRISTIAN （why christianity makes sense), 很有收獲。基督徒隻讀聖經可能不夠，要讀一些有名的著作，幫助自己理解。這裏我摘了一部分打出來，和大家分享。

3 Spirit, Word, and Wisdom 

As the early Christians reflected on what God had done in Jesus, and on what God was doing in their own life and work by his Spirit, these two themes of God’s word and God’s wisdom played a vital role in their understanding. 

When the first disciples were sent off by Jesus into the wider world to announce that he was Israel’s Messiah and hence the world’s true Lord, they knew that their message would make little or no sense to most of their hearers. It was an affront to Jewish people to tell them that Israel’s Messiah had arrived – and that the Romans had crucified him at least in part because the Jewish leaders hadn’t wanted to accept him! It was sheer madness, something to provoke sniggers or worse, to tell non-Jews that there was a single true God who was calling the world to account through a man whom he had sent and whom he had raised from the dead. And yet the early Christians discovered that telling the story carried a power which they regularly associated with the Spirit, but which they often referred to simply as “the word”. Note these references from Acts “Filled with the Holy Spirit, they spoke God’s word with boldness” “The word of God continued to spread” ”The word of God continued to advance and gain adherents” ”The word of God grew mightily and prevailed” (Acts 4:31 6:7 12:24 19:20)

Paul spoke this way too, “When you received the word of God from us” he wrote, “you accepted not as human word, but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers” This is “the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you…bearing fruit and growing in the whole world” (1 Thessalonians 2:13, Colossians 1:5-6) This last passage gives us another hint that the word is old as well as new: the phrases “bearing fruit and growing” is a direct allusion to the language of the first creation, of Genesis 1 “By the  word of YHWH were the heavens made” san the Psalmist＂and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth＂(Psalm 33:6) Yes, replied the early Christians, and this same word is now at work through the good news “the gospel” the message that declares Jesus as the risen Lord. “The word is near you ,on your lips and in your heart; because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”(Romans 10:8-9) In other words, when you announce the good news that the risen Jesus is Lord, that very word is the word of God, a carrier or agent of God’s Spirit,, a means by which, as Isaiah had predicted, new life from God’s dimension comes to bring new creation within ours (Isaiah 40:8 55:10-13) 

So,finally, with wisdom as well. Wisdom (personified) was already thought of within Judaism as God’s agent in creation, the one through whom the world was made. John, Paul and the Letter to the Hebrews all draw on this idea to speak of Jesus himself as the one through whom God made the world. But it doesn’t stop there. Paul, like the book of Proverbs, goes on to speak of this wisdom (no longer personified) being accessible to humans through the power of God’s Spirit. As in Proverbs, part of the point about wisdom is that it’s what you need in order to live a fully, genuinely human life. It is not, he says, a wisdom “of this age”—that is, of the present world and the way this world sees things. It doesn’t conform to the kind of wisdom that ruler of the present world like to acknowledge. Instead “speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our Glory”(1 Corinthians 2:7) God has given us access to a new kind of wisdom, through the Spirit.

All God’s treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in the Messiah himself. This means that those who belong to the Messiah have this wisdom accessible to them, and hence the chance to grow toward mature human and Christian living. “It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom so that we may present everyone mature in Messiah (Colossians 1:28 2:2-3) ” At this point, too, those in whom the Spirit dwells are called to be people who live at, and by, the intersection of heaven and earth

…

That’s how the church is to carry forward the work of Jesus. The book of Acts says that in the previous book (referring to the author’s earlier volume – that is the Gospel of Luke) the writer had described “All that Jesus began to do and teach” The implication is clear: that the story of the church, led and energized by the power of the Spirit, is the story of Jesus continuing to do and to teach – through his Spirit-led people. Once more, that’s why we pray that God’s kingdom will come, and his will will be done, ”on earth as it is in heaven” 

to be continued

[盈袖2006]

回複苗青青的評論:
to me the point is what is a fully, genuinely human life, which give us the real joy and peace? Jesus lived as an example for us as a real human (as God originally created) and the bible tells us in details + how. I 've tasted a little and it is great!

[苗青青]

"part of the point about wisdom is that it’s what you need in order to live a fully, genuinely human life. "

Sure, I fully agree. And the wisdom is with God.

A rather concise and lucid writting, thanks for sharing.

[盈袖2006]

看看吧，我自己信了，也想讓大家看看：）

[餅姐姐]

沙發！謝謝了，晚上我來看看