Session 4: Priests and
Rulers (pp. 73-100)
1. What do you make of Wright’s understanding of creation
and the role of “Human” in it? What does he see as the role of Jesus and his
followers?
2. What does Wright mean when he writes that humanity has
both a royal and priestly vocation? How does he support this notion by drawing
on Scripture? Is this a vocation that you might feel called to? What would that
look like in your life?
3. Pay close attention to Wright’s summary on pp. 84-85 of
the “large slowly-developing story” of God’s interaction with the world. How do
you respond to this telling of the story?
4. How does Wright describe the function and meaning of the
Temple? How do you respond to his description of Jesus as “fulfilled Israel”?
5. According to St. Paul, how do we prepare for the goal of
our “glorification”?
We had a very lively and full discussion last night. Thanks to everyone who participated! Here are my notes. Please feel free to fill in things I missed or to make additional comments. And we still want to hear from others who are reading the book but unable to come to our discussions!
ReplyDelete- We wondered if Wright takes most (all?) of the Bible literally. Had a hard time deciding if he sees passages from, for example, Genesis and Revelation as metaphor or poetry or factual.
- We questioned if it is possible or even desirable for humans to rule creation. Who's going to tell the lion that we're in charge? Or the earthquake?
- We noted the difference between this chapter and chapters 1 and 2. In the earlier chapters Wright uses concrete examples from real life to lay the foundation of his argument. But, in this chapter he relies solely on "proof-texting" - selecting Bible passages to support his point.
- Some felt that he spent too much time on the "royal" part of our vocation and not enough on the "priestly" role.
- Some felt he bit off more than he (or we) could chew in this chapter. Fewer scriptural citations would have been better.
- Some of us were very taken by what Wright did in his telling of the Garden of Eden story - that we are to reflect God into the world, to take care of creation for God, and reflect creation back to God.
- Some noted that God - or specifically Christian spirituality - seems to be missing from the book, at least so far. We wondered if what he is proposing (so far) really qualifies as a distinctively Christian ethic.
- We noted that Wright is admittedly very Western-centric.
- But, one person noted some similarities to Buddhism - the importance of living this life, the challenge to be a truly flourishing human being.
- Some of us wondered what it would look like if all 7 billion humans really took on the twin vocations of worship and stewardship. Is it worthwhile even to think in these terms?
- We noted that the "royal" language is problematic, maybe especially for Americans. On the other hand, Jesus presents us with a very different way of being royal. And the "kingdom of God" is a place of abundance and healing.
- We were challenged by what Wright says about "glory" and really grappled with what that might mean for us.
- We wondered about what it means to be "truly human" when for most of our history so many people have been "slimy" and greedy. But, we did note that some progress has been made. We at least give lip service to human rights, for example, though we fall very short of living up to those ideals.
Your thoughts?
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