More Foundational

But what if God’s commitment to the cosmos he created is more foundational than God’s desire to see the Law maintained?

This is a question posed and answered over at Storied Theology. Dr Kirk talks about the magic deeper still that the witch did not know, and which we can so easily remain oblivious to despite its revelation in Christ.

If you read nothing else this week, read this post.

Not A Court Drama

There is a new blog on the market by scholar J.R. Daniel Kirk. Just when I was beginning to question the raison d'etre of blogs, reading Storied Theology gave me hope. For example, how about this for pulling the pin out of a grenade and launching it into the ranks of centuries of theology:

The structure of the universe is not law, the story of the universe is not a court drama.

Now I like A Few Good Men as much as the next person, but I think I'm ready to hop on board Kirk's train when he says this.

And then there's his take on the one we Christians call "God":

We have not spoken of the Christian God when we have spoken of a “spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.” We have talked about an ideal for a divinity. We speak of the Christian God when we speak of the God who has acted to send His own Son, to give that Son up for us all, to raise that Son from the dead, and to see to it that the message of this son is sent to the ends of the earth.

In other words, one of the most important pay-offs for being willing to have our transhistorical theological categories exchanged for the biblical categories is that it creates space to reconceive of the identity of God as put on display in the biblical narrative itself: a God who is relentlessly on mission to draw the world to Himself.

Praise be to the blogging gods, for they have looked favourably on us in this new year.