I am currently reading The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright, which my lovely wife very graciously bought for me! I must say that I am greatly enjoying the book and the historical case that Wright has made for the resurrection as an actual bodily resurrection, not some Platonic "spiritual" resurrection or mere resusitation. The whole scope of the book is enormous including both the canonical and non-canonical literature.

I must admit that I'm still thinking my through the use of the non-canonical literature in exegesis. First, I readily see that it is essential to read and understand it order to be better able to interpret the text and to get a good sense of the historical context of the gospels and the rest of the NT. But it seems that many scholars (though I don't think that Wright is one of them, but he mentions a few) get side-tracked by these other texts and start imposing them on the Scriptures, when Scripture might actually be saying something different. Apparently 2 Corinthians 4 is treated like this by some scholars, who believe that Paul has shifted in his belief from a bodily resurrestion (is there any other kind asks Wright) in 1 Corinthians to a non-bodily, shedding of the husk, Platonic, gnostic sort of resurrection, where the soul finally sheds the flesh and spends eternity in some disembodied state in heaven. I think as long as the non-canonical texts are kept in there proper place there is no harm in reading them, and actually, as I would argue, a great deal of treasure to be mined from Scripture because of them. Others would argue that they are too dangerous and must not be used at all in interpretation. This just seems like parnoia, especially given the fact that many people during Bible times would have been familiar with them. It would seem that books hold more power than most of us would like to believe. Remember reading is active; it makes us move.

Stateism. If I am Lord, then I need a kingdom. But the only kingdoms that are available to me to make my own are the present ones, particularly the kingdom that I live in. So, I have to try to make this kingdom my own (as opposed to making it Christ's). The only way to do this is to start playing politics and using the government to try to accomplish my agenda. Now, I am not saying that politics is bad per se, but to see and use it as the means of accomplishing my own ends is idolatrous. Politics was never meant to be the realm where true change in a culture and society was to take place. The Church has that calling, and most of our efforts at this period of time should be spent on getting our doctrine and liturgy right and seeking to worship the true King rightly.

Having listened to a great deal of N.T. Wright and various other NPP proponents and opponents, I am thankful for the correction of what the true gospel is... the proclamation of Jesus as Lord and Messiah and all the various consequences of that, including individual salvation. But what happens when a secondary consequence becomes the gospel itself? Is it a false gospel? My tentative answer is yes.

If the gospel is primarily that proclamation of the reality that Jesus of Nazareth is both Lord and Christ, then a false gospel would necessarily have to assert the negative, Jesus is not Lord and Christ. It is true that a secondary consequence of the true gospel is that individuls can be saved (I would even want to qualify this, but I'm willing to let it stand as is). Now, how is it this individual salvation preached?

It is preached with the underlying premise that the individual is sovereign, and therefore chooses Christ (a.k.a., accepts Christ into his/her heart) to be their saviour. This would seem to be asserting de facto that the individual is Lord (though not necessarily Christ), thus a false gospel. This simple shift in the gospel message would also seem to account for many of the schizophrenic beliefs that many believers have today.

Assurance. If I am the one choosing God, then what ultimate assurance do I have? How can I have assurance when my choices are not immutable. What will keep me from "un-choosing" him later? Many would say that God will keep me. That's true. Many know the right answer, but remember their whole salvation experience was predicated on them choosing him. There experience doesn't mesh with the truth. Hence the schizophrenia and the need for assurance of the doctrine of assurance.

Existentialism. If I choose him, then who ultimately defines truth? Well, once again, any good Christian knows the right answer. But the de facto situation is that I become the determiner of truth. My existence and experience become the bedrock for not only interpreting Scripture (trying to answer the question "What does Scripture mean to me?" as opposed to "What does this mean period?") to interpreting history and the sacraments. Baptism doesn't have a whole lot of meaning, we just do it because it seems to be the tradition, but we really have no idea what it means.

Law/Gospel. Under the true gospel this poses no problem. The true King makes the rules, plain and simple. When I am preached as sovereign and the works that I would impose conflict with his, in order to completely bypass this problem, lets just pit law against gospel and call law bad. Then the only law becomes law is evil. And who's saying this? Me, the king.

Gnosticism. With the breakdown of law, which deals with deeds done in the flesh and having said that law is evil, then my flesh must be evil. Why care about it so much? Lets just focus on life-after-death, instead of life-after-life-after-death (Wright's phrase) and the total destruction of the world based on the premillennialist view. It's not worth saving anyway.

This also all leads to the need for the believer to replace the pastor with the Christian psychologist. We need someone to help us with all the problems that arise and drive us crazy from accepting a false gospel.

For anyone who wishes to teach themselves Greek, I recommend:

The Basics of Biblical Greek by William Mounce
The Basics of Biblical Greek Workbook by William Mounce
(Work through these books slowly and memorize all paradigms and vocabulary words)

The Morphology of Biblical Greek by William Mounce
(This will help identify all those forms that the basic grammar book did not have time to cover)

Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax by Daniel Wallace
(Work through this book slowly also and memorize all the categories and their defintions)

A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature by Walter Bauer and Frederick Danker
(The standard scholarly lexicon)

Athenaze by Maurice Balm and Gilbert Lawall
(Another good reference grammar)

Novum Testamentum Graece by Nestle-Aland
(The standard Greek text of the NT)

Remember go slow and enjoy the process of learning. It will take awhile to get the grammar down, and it will take longer still to be able to translate with only the help of a lexicon. But that's ok, the fruits will be well worth the investment.

I can still remember the very first book that my aunt bought me as a child that I considered to be a real book. It was Stephen Lawhead's In the Hall of the Dragon King. I was hooked. My aunt had said that she would buy me books as often as I requested, for which I am forever grateful. That seemingly small offer to a young boy has had profound effects. I have continued over the years to buy everything that Lawhead has written.

My appetite for books, reading, and learning has only grown since that time as a boy. My next literary endeavors consisted of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and whatever I could get my hands on of C.S. Lewis. Reading LOTR is like taking a deep breathe in a place of sublime beauty and wildness and realizing how truly breathetaking the right air could be. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia was also an affecting read. His description of the land beyond the sea in The Last Battle as being larger than the doorway and house, which supposedly contained it, makes me long for that land still and to help bring to this earth.

It is interesting that most of my earlier books and reading odyssey focused on fiction, which I still love, but read far less of these days. My major diet consists mainly of nonfiction, where I am trying to systematically teach myself certain subjects that I wish I had learned earlier: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and hopefully next I'll be able to start teaching myself formal logic.