SS and authority of God

A fascinating breakdown of what "authority of God" truly means, and how Scripture relates to it. Like most things N.T. Wright, full of many nuggets of truth that will challenge you and take some time to digest. Edition-specific: the added case studies really helped illustrate the concepts laid out in the original chapters.

Highly recommended for all interested in Christianity, how to read the Bible, and practical application of Scripture and doctrine. ( )

Not as good (read fresh, insightful, well-argued) as Wright's other books, but a solid overview of his approach to the authority of Scripture. If you're familiar with Wright's other works and textbook hermeneutics then you can pass on this. ( )

I started and finished reading this having begun Dale Martin’s *Sex and the Single Savior,* which takes an anti-foundationalist approach to reading Scripture. Martin provides some great critique to Wright’s focus on historical criticism, especially that at some level Wright’s emphasis is so strong that it raises the question of how anyone read the Bible well and faithfully in the past, before the historical-critical method existed.

Wright indeed gives disappointingly scant attention to both premodern and postmodern readings of Scripture in this book. He also doesn’t address theological readings which are not his own model (Creation Fall Israel Jesus Church). Part of this has to do with the relatively narrow and non-exhaustive scope of Wright’s book, but I still wish he had treated those subjects more thoroughly.

What still brings this up to a 4-5 star book after those critiques is 1) that Wright is writing as a pastor to the Church, and this pastoral emphasis shapes every page and 2) the conversation about sources of authority in the church through the framework readers of Hooker and Wesley have given them (Scripture, Tradition, Reason, Experience).

As a United Methodist pastor turning to Wright while United Methodism appears to be flying toward schism, his writing about how these sources of authority interact is just terrific. He is especially helpful in speaking about how for Hooker and Wesley (and most of the Christian Tradition) reason is a particular kind of reason—not just the ability to think rationally, but reasoning within the Church, with its Scripture. Reason is thus a traditioned form of theological reasoning with the Scriptures. Experience, meanwhile, insists Wright, is no source of authority at all but rather the end of authority, if we take “experience” to mean that my individual experience determines my theology, rather than that experience is an important shaper and affirmer of our theology from other sources of primary authority.

Five stars not because it’s perfect but because it helps me think and understand and speak better of Scripture, theology, and God to the people of God.
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This is an excellent, very accessible (non-academic) book which guides the reader away from shallow readings of Scripture and replaces that with a thoughtful method centered on the authority of God as exercised through Scripture. Wright does a good job of avoiding external priorities overlaid on Scripture by various camps and includes two intriguing case studies. ( )