Anna Fink
Dr. Schuler
Honors
12 September 2008
Theology
is a big word. Webster defines it as "The study
of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially: the study
of God and of God's relation to the world." Most churchgoers shy away from this
word and instead focus only on what they feel their role as church members are.
They attend church regularly, sing songs, make an offering, and go about their
daily routines. They would rather not study their faith but leave that up to
those in power. The pastor and directors of outreach should be the ones to
worry over these matters. Theology is not the affair of the common laymen of
the church in many minds.
Theology is frightening for so many since it is so deep and sometimes seemingly dangerous. N.T. Wright uses the metaphor "staring into the sun" to describe the study of theology. This metaphor seems to be quite appropriate. The human race needs the sun to live. It gives light. Without it food would not be able to grow. All people would be lost. God's word is a light for His people. "Your word is a lamp to `my feet and a light for my path" (Psalm 119:105). The study of God's word is the basis from which one's faith can grow. "Speaking of God in anything like the Christian sense is like staring into the sun. It's dazzling. It's easier, actually, to look away from the sun itself and to enjoy the fact that, once it's well and truly risen, you can see everything else clearly" (56).
Digging
deep into God's word is an intense experience. God's wisdom is beyond human
understanding. How is anyone in this life supposed to grasp him? 1 Corinthians 2:7 says
"We speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been
hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began." This is what
humans cannot grasp, His "secret wisdom," and they are not meant to until they
reach glory; this means until they are in heaven. Another biblical example lies in Job 37:5. "God's voice thunders
in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding."
Any new or struggling Christian
would have been lost by almost the entirety of chapters six and seven. Their
retina's burned by the sun's rays. All this talk of the recurring exodus and
returning of Israel would make heads spin. The idea that Jesus was bringing
God's kingdom yet not making a kingdom for God here is awfully confusing. These
readers would most likely feel a lot like the Israelites felt at the time. When
people do not see the whole picture, they never quite understand. No believer, no matter how much theology they
study, will see the whole picture until they are with God, glorified in heaven.
It is when they understand that they cannot completely comprehend the Bible
that their faith can truly grow by God's light.
It is this reason that this
metaphor cannot be taken as law. People should not be scared off by N.T.
Wright's wording. Many Christians are familiar
with the term "child-like faith." This refers to how a child will often blindly
trust, without questioning if what was said is true or not. If everyone had
this "child-like faith" studying the bible would not be as difficult as it is
sometimes made out to be. The last section of part two is called "Living by the
Spirit." This is really what being
Christian is about. Wright writes, "As Jesus addressed God by the Aramaic
family word Abba, Father, so
Christians are encouraged to do the same: to come to know God in the way in
which, in the best sort of family, the child knows the parent" (137). This
should not be a strenuous relationship.
Wright's book can intrigue the
curiosity of its readers. It may start the desire for many to investigate the Bible
more. In particular, one Concordia University St. Paul freshman read a
selection from pages 67 and 68 of Wright's book multiple times, to multiple
friends. "When they [the Israelites] came to the word YHWH, they would say
ADONAI (which means "my Lord") instead. As a way of reminding themselves that
this was what they had to do, they would sometimes write the consonants of YHWH
with the vowels of ADONAI. This confused some later readers, who tried to say
the two words together... they created the hybrid JEHOVAH." The student was
stunned. Even though she had attended eight years of Christian day school and
four years of Christian high school, she had never heard this before. This made
her wonder what other mysteries were contained in the history of the church.
"And it is when we understand
Jesus, I shall suggest, that we begin to recognize the voice whose echoes we
have heard in the longing for justice, the hunger for spirituality and relationship,
and the delight in beauty" (69). This is probably the best connection that N.T.
Wright makes to join the points from the first section Echoes of a Voice and the second Staring into the Sun. It pushes the point that the answers to
life's questions are found in God's inspired word. Exploring the Bible, and
studying theology would better answer the questions that every human feels.
Work Cited
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2008.Merriam-Webster Online. 10
September 2008 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theology
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