Daily Reading for June 17
We can understand the Bible best if we read it as a five-act play, the five acts being Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus, and Church. We are not living in an unfallen creation; or in a fallen world without promise; or in the time of Israel BC; or, indeed, in the time of Jesus himself. We are living in the fifth act, and have to improvise, under the guidance of the Spirit, in such a way as to bring this narrative (not some other one!) to its appointed and proper conclusion: in other words, to implement the achievement of Jesus and thus to anticipate the promise of new heavens and new earth.
The Bible is here to equip God’s people to carry forward his purposes of new covenant and new creation. It is there to enable people to work for justice, to sustain their spirituality as they do so, to create and enhance relationships at every level, and to produce that new creation that will have something of the beauty of God himself. The Bible isn’t like an accurate description of how a car is made. It’s more like the mechanic who helps you fix it, the garage attendant who refuels it, and the guide who tells you how to get where you’re going. And where you’re going is to make God’s new creation happen in his world, not simply to find your own way unscathed through the old creation.
From an interview with N. T. Wright, quoted in Rising From the Ashes: Rethinking Church by Becky Garrison. Copyright © 2007. Seabury Books, an imprint of Church Publishing. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org