The New Testament and the People of God

NT Wright is one of my favorite writers. Right now I am reading his book The New Testament and the People of God. It is really good - though it gets very technical. If you are interested in reading a book by Wright I would highly, highly recommend Simply Christian.
Back to The New Testament and the People of God. At one point Wright begins talking about the authority of the bible. To explain the authority of the bible he gives the illustration of play that has four acts written but has lost the fifth act. Now the first four acts are amazing - great plot and characterization. So the play should be done. In order to get the fifth act the actors will be invited to make it up. In order to make it up they will have immerse themselves in the first four acts. When the fifth act is then acted out it needs to be consistent with the first four acts. It has bring the play to a conclusion. Now people could argue whether the actors where right in how they acted based on the authority of the first four acts. Were they faithful to what was written? The one thing they could not do is keep re-acting the first four acts, they would have to do something new.
Wright says that this is way that the bible is authoritative. We are called to be the actors in act 5. In order to do it right we have to immerse ourselves in the first four acts (creation, fall, Israel, Jesus). Not just doing what they did, but living in a way that is faithful to what happened in the past.
Very interesting. What do you think?

election

Manitoba has called for an election. This will be the first Manitoba provincial election that I will vote in. So I decided to make an informed choice I should discover some things about the different parties. So I went to their web pages. And what have I discovered?
Liberal party has a web page which is not very useful. It just has some rants.
PC party has nothing to say. Well actually all they have to say is that NDP is related to Satan. Nothing about what they are going to do.
NDP party has a little bit to say. However most of that is expressed in how evil the PCs are.
What would I like to see on a web page? A statement of vision, some core values, some practical steps on how they would work out the vision and core values. I do not enjoy hearing/reading about how the other parties will destroy our province. Generating fear really bugs me. And I would appreciate facts - no name calling.
One thing I found really funny is the both PC and NDP claim that the soccer field is their idea and the other is just getting on board to gain some votes. Not sure exactly who to believe.
So I am not sure who I am going to vote for. Seeing as I have no idea what any of the parties stand for. I believe voting is important. And I am hoping to make an informed vote.

Theology of play

I am reading this book called The Rest of God, by Mark Buchanan. The last chapter I read talked about a theology of play. Mark states that the sabbath (which is what the whole book is about) needs to be about playing and having fun. He mentioned how in some traditions the Sabbath was about doing nothing - a person was not allowed to work or play. I can totally remember being at my relatives house one Sabbath and it was awful. We were not allowed to be noisy or play or doing anything. We had sit a listen to Christian programs on the radio (not that these were bad). As I thought about this I think I have come to the conclusion that this is part of the reason for most of life I have been anti-sabbath. If the Sabbath means that we can do nothing than I wanted nothing to do with it. I felt like the Sabbath robbed life instead of giving it. Now Buchanan talks about playing. This sounds like fun. It sounds life giving. When you play you just do it for fun you are not playing to be useful or productive or to check things off a list...you just play.
So let me encourage you to take a day to just play - waste time just having fun.

Second Hand Pants

Do not hold on to me

One of the things that struck me this Easter was the fact that I cannot hold on to my picture of God. I have to constantly allow God to be god even if that means he is different than I believe him to be or even want him to be.
On Sunday 8 people gave their testimonies about how God had worked in their life. Most of them recounted how they had a picture of God that was wrong. And through experiences, others, reading the bible their view began to change with the result that their life began to change.
Also when reading the stories of the resurrection I got the idea that disciples had to let go of Jesus as they knew him. They had to allow him to be greater than they had imagined. Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension changed everything for them, including their ideas of who Jesus was.
I came to realize that I am very arrogant to believe that I have full understanding of who God is. I have come to the conclusion that I really do not know a whole lot - I just think I do.