As we approach Easter, I plan to post a short reflection each day about the events in Christ's life during the final "holy week" before his crucifixion and subsequent resurrection.
Please read Matthew 21:1–11
Today is Palm Sunday, marking the beginning of Holy Week in the Christian calendar. The Gospels tell us that it was on the equivalent Sunday in about AD 30 that Jesus of Nazareth began the last week of his earthly life and the culmination of the three years of his public ministry as an itinerant rabbi in Palestine. On that day, Jesus rode into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey and receiving the acclaim of a large crowd of thousands of people as the long awaited King of Israel, the Messiah.
As he rode into the holy city, the crowd threw down their cloaks and waved palm branches in praise to God (hence the name Palm Sunday). Children as well as adults sang his praises. For many people this was going to be the beginning of a holy revolution that would throw the occupying Romans out of Palestine and restore the nation of Israel to its former glory. It was the dawning realisation that Jesus wasn't going to be that kind of Messiah that led to the crowds turning against him and demanding his death only five days later.
What Christ's mission involved was far greater than defeating the Roman armies. Christ rode into Jerusalem knowing he was coming to die. And so courageously and resolutely he rode into the jaws of hell to win salvation for sinners. He was a victorious Messiah, but the enemies he defeated were sin, death and the devil. And rescued not just one nation but the whole world. He came as God's king to set up the Kingdom of God, but he came to do that through making peace, not through hatred and war. He was a king utterly unlike any before or since. He is a king who does not create subjects by force or by political guile; his "subjects" are regarded as his friends and their loyalty is won only by the king's love for them and their trust and love for him in return.
Showing posts with label The Kingdom of God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Kingdom of God. Show all posts
Sunday, 14 April 2019
Friday, 19 June 2015
The Church and the Kingdom of God (Repost)
Have
you ever wondered why the Four Gospels refer many times to "the Kingdom
of God" (or "the Kingdom of heaven" in Matthew) while they only mention
the church a few times, whereas Acts and the Letters from the apostles
mention the church many times and the Kingdom of God is seldom
mentioned? In fact "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of heaven" is mentioned
in 83 verses in the Gospels and in only 14 other verses in the rest of
the New Testament. "Church" on the other hand is mentioned in only two
verses in the Gospels, but in 71 verses in the rest of the New
Testament.
Why
the massive switch from a "Kingdom" focus in Jesus' ministry in the
Gospels to a "Church" focus in the ministry of the apostles?
And what exactly is the difference is between the Church and the Kingdom (if any)?
Do you think they are two ways of describing the same thing maybe? Is the church the Kingdom of God by another name?
These are the questions we're going to have a quick look at in this post.
The first thing I think we need to sort out are our definitions. If
we define Church and Kingdom correctly this will help us establish the
similarities and differences between the two and enable us to answer
some of our questions.
A
reasonable definition of “Kingdom of God” is: all spheres on earth
where God’s reign and rule (or God’s government) is accepted and
embraced. The Kingdom of God is already in existence through Christ,
though the fullness of the Kingdom still lies in the future. On the
other hand, a reasonable short definition of “Church” is: the community
of all who have faith in Jesus Christ.
It
is clear therefore that though there is a close relationship between
Church and Kingdom, they are not the same thing. The Kingdom of God is not
a synonym for the Church. The Kingdom of God – or God’s sovereign reign
and rule – is an idea or concept, a state of being, a way of viewing
life and the world, and a goal towards which all of history is building
and moving and which Christ lived and worked to bring about. The Church
is the people who are committed to following Christ, and in so doing
they are people who accept the Kingdom idea and work for its growth and
further realisation in history.
If
we were to put it in military terms, the Church might be compared to a
country's army and Christ might be compared to country’s leader and the
army’s commander-in-chief. In those terms, the Kingdom of God would be both the
goal or objective of the war and the totality of the territory or
people where the war aims have already been established and accepted.
The
Kingdom of God is therefore both a different and a much wider concept
than the Church. The Kingdom includes every area of life that is under
the rule and authority of God. If God rules in a person’s life, they are
in the Kingdom. If God rules a home, it is part of the Kingdom. Where a
business is run on biblical principles, it is also part of the Kingdom.
The Kingdom of God includes every human activity that is done according
to his will. And God intends his Kingdom to grow and expand into every
facet and area of life.
This
expansion can take place either as a person enters the Kingdom as a new
citizen through faith in Jesus (the Bible calls this being “born again”
into the Kingdom) or as Kingdom citizens bring different parts of their
lives under the will of God. As we have seen this can include personal relationships, family
life, work, hobbies and leisure activities, political and civic life,
art and cultural life, as well as, of course, spiritual and church life. The Kingdom of God becomes a present reality when a sphere of life is ruled according to the Word of God.
The
Church’s role is to work to help build the Kingdom. One of the problems
of our time is that rather than seeing the Church (the community of
believers) existing to help with the Kingdom project, there is a
tendency to see the Church existing for its own benefit and for its own
growth. And rather than the Church being the Kingdom vanguard in the
world, often it has become a spiritual retreat from the world. What’s
wrong with that? Well, to go back to our military analogy, it would be
like working to recruit and train for the army as an end in itself,
rather than as a precursor to going into battle and making the King's
war objectives a reality!
The
community of Christ’s people is critical to the God’s Kingdom project,
but it is a huge mistake to confuse the project with the personnel. The
Church must never be an end in itself. It must always be working to
establish the kingdom of God. When Jesus comes back he does not just
want to find a holy Church, but a Church that has established the
kingdom of God as a reality in the world.
So
why did the apostles switch focus from the Kingdom to the Church? I
think the answer is that once Christ had inaugurated the Kingdom, the
focus had to switch from the concept and project to the establishment of
the people through whom the Kingdom project would be continued. That is
not to say that the apostles’ forgot about the Kingdom. Quite the
opposite – they realised that the Church had to be established to
advance the Kingdom, just as an army must be recruited and trained
before it can implement the King’s war objectives. There can be no
Kingdom of God without the Church, so the Church is the focus of the
apostles, but even then, not as an end in itself, but as the divinely
appointed agent to work with him for the Kingdom.
Saturday, 11 August 2012
The King Jesus Gospel
The King Jesus Gospel
Scot McKnight
Zondervan 2011
In this challenging, radical, yet somehow comforting book, Scot McKnight tackles the centrepiece of evangelical theology - the gospel itself - and makes the stark claim that evangelicals have often failed to understand or preach the full biblical gospel. In fact McKnight takes us back to basics by asking the question: What is the gospel?
Now this is a question that evangelicals think we know the answer to. It's our question. Par excellence. We feel we own it.
McKnight argues that evangelicals have traditionally answered this question wrongly because we confuse the gospel with the plan of salvation. We have often been content with a partial gospel about our own personal salvation instead of the gospel preached by the apostles and by Jesus himself which was much bigger than just answering the question "How do I get saved?"
To borrow a telling phrase from theologian Dallas Willard, we have reduced the gospel to being about mere "sin management"rather than being about Christ's lordship over the whole world and all of life. And we have too often concentrated on making converts rather than - as Christ and the apostles focused on - making disciples. In this respect, McKnight says what we call evangelical Christianity would really be more accurately dubbed soterian Christianity or salvationist Christianity.
The trouble is that a soterian approach leads to a soterian culture instead of a genuine gospel culture. Church life becomes all about getting people into the "saved club" rather than Christ's lordship of all of life and church life being about all of life. A gospel culture's focus - just like the New Testament's focus - is about making disciples, not just converts. Rather than focusing on getting people in, the focus is on what to do with people once they are in.
I found McKnight's analysis convincing. I think he is right that there is a tendency to separate the plan of salvation from its biblical moorings in the Story of Jesus which is in itself rooted in the Story of Israel. McKnight makes the point that the plan of salvation is not the gospel. It exists. It is biblical. It emerges from the Bible's Story. The plan of salvation is dependent on the gospel, but it not the gospel.
It is well into the book before McKnight finally answers the question. The gospel is the Story of Jesus as culmination and resolution of the Story of Israel. The gospel is the announcement that God's King (Jesus) has now come to rule God's world.
He shows that this is the gospel Paul preached, regarding 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; 20-28 as the essence of the gospel:
This means that the four books we call "the Gospels" actually are the Gospel. They are therefore not mere story books before we get to the theology of the Pauline letters. They are preeminent. They are the gospel. That's why they are each called "The Gospel [singular] according to..."
This also means the ancient creeds are the gospel. I have heard evangelicals say they believe the Apostles' Creed but are disappointed it doesn't deal the gospel - by which they mean the plan of salvation - but if the gospel in summary is about who Jesus is and what he's done, then the creeds are very close to the 1 Corinthians 15 passage.
And therefore we can also agree that Jesus himself preached the gospel. (It is surprising how many evangelicals would deny this, thinking that we don't get to the gospel before the book of Acts and the letters of the New Testament.) Yes, Jesus preached the gospel because as the Messiah he is the very embodiment of the gospel in his actions as well as his teachings.
On this view, the Jesus of the Gospels with his Kingdom of God emphasis is in total harmony with the Christ of the Epistles. As McKnight shows, Paul's gospel was also Peter's gospel and all the other apostles, and it was also Jesus' gospel. One of the great things about McKnight's understanding is how it really brings the whole New Testament together.
It will come as no shock that I really liked The King Jesus Gospel. I have a feeling that because Scot McKnight challenges the heart of what we evangelicals think we are about he will be attacked for this book and these insights. It is now predictable that this will be so. The same people attacked proponents of the New Perspective on Paul (with which McKnight's views have much in common) for the same reasons. The truth is that McKnight's gospel does not take anything away from us. It gives us a whole lot more. Whether we like the more - the need to build communities of disciples rather than clubs of the saved - is another question again.
Scot McKnight
Zondervan 2011
In this challenging, radical, yet somehow comforting book, Scot McKnight tackles the centrepiece of evangelical theology - the gospel itself - and makes the stark claim that evangelicals have often failed to understand or preach the full biblical gospel. In fact McKnight takes us back to basics by asking the question: What is the gospel?
Now this is a question that evangelicals think we know the answer to. It's our question. Par excellence. We feel we own it.
McKnight argues that evangelicals have traditionally answered this question wrongly because we confuse the gospel with the plan of salvation. We have often been content with a partial gospel about our own personal salvation instead of the gospel preached by the apostles and by Jesus himself which was much bigger than just answering the question "How do I get saved?"
To borrow a telling phrase from theologian Dallas Willard, we have reduced the gospel to being about mere "sin management"rather than being about Christ's lordship over the whole world and all of life. And we have too often concentrated on making converts rather than - as Christ and the apostles focused on - making disciples. In this respect, McKnight says what we call evangelical Christianity would really be more accurately dubbed soterian Christianity or salvationist Christianity.
The trouble is that a soterian approach leads to a soterian culture instead of a genuine gospel culture. Church life becomes all about getting people into the "saved club" rather than Christ's lordship of all of life and church life being about all of life. A gospel culture's focus - just like the New Testament's focus - is about making disciples, not just converts. Rather than focusing on getting people in, the focus is on what to do with people once they are in.
I found McKnight's analysis convincing. I think he is right that there is a tendency to separate the plan of salvation from its biblical moorings in the Story of Jesus which is in itself rooted in the Story of Israel. McKnight makes the point that the plan of salvation is not the gospel. It exists. It is biblical. It emerges from the Bible's Story. The plan of salvation is dependent on the gospel, but it not the gospel.
It is well into the book before McKnight finally answers the question. The gospel is the Story of Jesus as culmination and resolution of the Story of Israel. The gospel is the announcement that God's King (Jesus) has now come to rule God's world.
He shows that this is the gospel Paul preached, regarding 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; 20-28 as the essence of the gospel:
- Christ died for our sins
- Christ was buried
- Christ is risen from the dead
- Christ has appeared to people
- Christ is victorious over his enemies
This means that the four books we call "the Gospels" actually are the Gospel. They are therefore not mere story books before we get to the theology of the Pauline letters. They are preeminent. They are the gospel. That's why they are each called "The Gospel [singular] according to..."
This also means the ancient creeds are the gospel. I have heard evangelicals say they believe the Apostles' Creed but are disappointed it doesn't deal the gospel - by which they mean the plan of salvation - but if the gospel in summary is about who Jesus is and what he's done, then the creeds are very close to the 1 Corinthians 15 passage.
And therefore we can also agree that Jesus himself preached the gospel. (It is surprising how many evangelicals would deny this, thinking that we don't get to the gospel before the book of Acts and the letters of the New Testament.) Yes, Jesus preached the gospel because as the Messiah he is the very embodiment of the gospel in his actions as well as his teachings.
On this view, the Jesus of the Gospels with his Kingdom of God emphasis is in total harmony with the Christ of the Epistles. As McKnight shows, Paul's gospel was also Peter's gospel and all the other apostles, and it was also Jesus' gospel. One of the great things about McKnight's understanding is how it really brings the whole New Testament together.
It will come as no shock that I really liked The King Jesus Gospel. I have a feeling that because Scot McKnight challenges the heart of what we evangelicals think we are about he will be attacked for this book and these insights. It is now predictable that this will be so. The same people attacked proponents of the New Perspective on Paul (with which McKnight's views have much in common) for the same reasons. The truth is that McKnight's gospel does not take anything away from us. It gives us a whole lot more. Whether we like the more - the need to build communities of disciples rather than clubs of the saved - is another question again.
Sunday, 17 June 2012
The Church and the Kingdom of God
Have you ever wondered why the Four Gospels refer many times to "the Kingdom of God" (or "the Kingdom of heaven" in Matthew) while they only mention the church a few times, whereas Acts and the Letters from the apostles mention the church many times and the Kingdom of God is seldom mentioned? In fact "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of heaven" is mentioned in 83 verses in the Gospels and in only 14 other verses in the rest of the New Testament. "Church" on the other hand is mentioned in only two verses in the Gospels, but in 71 verses in the rest of the New Testament.
Why the massive switch from a "Kingdom" focus in Jesus' ministry in the Gospels to a "Church" focus in the ministry of the apostles?
And what exactly is the difference is between the Church and the Kingdom (if any)?
Do you think they are two ways of describing the same thing maybe? Is the church the Kingdom of God by another name?
These are the questions we're going to have a quick look at in this post.
The first thing I think we need to sort out are our definitions. If we define Church and Kingdom correctly this will help us establish the similarities and differences between the two and enable us to answer some of our questions.
A reasonable definition of “Kingdom of God” is: all spheres on earth where God’s reign and rule (or God’s government) is accepted and embraced. The Kingdom of God is already in existence through Christ, though the fullness of the Kingdom still lies in the future. On the other hand, a reasonable short definition of “Church” is: the community of all who have faith in Jesus Christ.
It is clear therefore that though there is a close relationship between Church and Kingdom, they are not the same thing. The Kingdom of God is not a synonym for the Church. The Kingdom of God – or God’s sovereign reign and rule – is an idea or concept, a state of being, a way of viewing life and the world, and a goal towards which all of history is building and moving and which Christ lived and worked to bring about. The Church is the people who are committed to following Christ, and in so doing they are people who accept the Kingdom idea and work for its growth and further realisation in history.
If we were to put it in military terms, the Church might be compared to a country's army and Christ might be compared to country’s leader and the army’s commander-in-chief. In those terms, the Kingdom of God would be both the goal or objective of the war and the totality of the territory or people where the war aims have already been established and accepted.
The Kingdom of God is therefore both a different and a much wider concept than the Church. The Kingdom includes every area of life that is under the rule and authority of God. If God rules in a person’s life, they are in the Kingdom. If God rules a home, it is part of the Kingdom. Where a business is run on biblical principles, it is also part of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God includes every human activity that is done according to his will. And God intends his Kingdom to grow and expand into every facet and area of life.
This expansion can take place either as person enters the Kingdom as a new citizen through faith in Jesus (the Bible calls this being “born again” into the Kingdom) or as Kingdom citizens bring different parts of their lives under the will of God. As we have seen this can include family life, work, hobbies and leisure activities, political and civic life, art and cultural life, as well as, of course, spiritual and church life. The Kingdom of God becomes a present reality when a sphere of life is ruled according to the Word of God.
The Church’s role is to work to help build the Kingdom. One of the problems of our time is that rather than seeing the Church (the community of believers) existing to help with the Kingdom project, there is a tendency to see the Church existing for its own benefit and for its own growth. And rather than the Church being the Kingdom vanguard in the world, often it has become a spiritual retreat from the world. What’s wrong with that? Well, to go back to our military analogy, it would be like working to recruit and train for the army as an end in itself, rather than as a precursor to going into battle and making the King's war objectives a reality!
The community of Christ’s people is critical to the God’s Kingdom project, but it is a huge mistake to confuse the project with the personnel. The Church must never be an end in itself. It must always be working to establish the kingdom of God. When Jesus comes back he does not just want to find a holy Church, but a Church that has established the kingdom of God as a reality in the world.
So why did the apostles switch focus from the Kingdom to the Church? I think the answer is that once Christ had inaugurated the Kingdom, the focus had to switch from the concept and project to the establishment of the people through whom the Kingdom project would be continued. That is not to say that the apostles’ forgot about the Kingdom. Quite the opposite – they realised that the Church had to be established to advance the Kingdom, just as an army must be recruited and trained before it can implement the King’s war objectives. There can be no Kingdom of God without the Church, so the Church is the focus of the apostles, but even then, not as an end in itself, but as the divinely appointed agent to work with him for the Kingdom.
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Tom Wright for Everyone
Tom Wright for Everyone
Stephen Kuhrt
SPCK 2011
This is a short but readable book on the theology of N. T. Wright and how it might influence the local church for the better, written by a Church of England vicar, Stephen Kuhrt. The chapters run as follows:
Chapter one outlines Tom Wright's career both as a New Testament scholar and as a churchman (Wright is an ordained Anglican minister and was until recently the Bishop of Durham).
Chapter two discusses a number of issues and problems facing the 21st century church that Kuhrt obviously sees Wright's theology as a possible way of addressing.
Chapter three is an excellent and accurate summary of Wright's theological distinctives. For anyone who is unfamiliar with Wright's work, this chapter should be required reading.
In chapters four, five and six, Kuhrt explores how Wright's theological approach might reinvigorate and renew the church's work in the fields of pastoral issues, mission and the church's life of fellowship and worship. The final chapter is a challenge to the church to engage with Wright and accept at least some of what he is teaching.
My own view of Tom Wright has always been, and remains, mixed. Much of his focus is different from what I would call mainstream evangelicalism which can tend towards pietism and individualism. Wright's insistence on the gospel's social, political and corporate demands would be a shot in the arm for many such churches. On the other hand, there are times where I feel strongly that although Wright is usually correct in his affirmations - for example that Paul's doctrine of justification by faith must have an impact on how we handle church membership and Christian unity and equality, he is sometimes wrong in his denials - that justification is not about a sinner's righteous standing before a holy God.
If we read Wright with this twofold approach - being slow to reject his affirmations and even slower to accept his denials - there is much in Wright's theology I agree with Kuhrt that we need to engage with and accept for the benefit of our churches.
For the record, I welcome Wright's emphasis on the covenant and the Jewish roots of Christianity, his insistence that the gospel has important social and political implications alongside teaching about personal salvation, his recognition that the resurrection is as important a doctrine in its own right as Christ's atoning death, his analysis that the Christus Victor theme is more important to the biblical authors than evangelicals have traditionally recognised, that eschatology is central to the apostles' message, and that the Christian hope is not "to die and go to heaven" but to have everlasting life in a new renewed creation on earth, and that the Gospel's message of the Kingdom and the Epistles' message of salvation are closely linked, and that justification was used by Paul as a doctrine to explain the breaking down of barriers between Jew and Gentile.
Kuhrt's book is a useful tool in this ongoing dialogue. I feel that Kuhrt is overly gushing in his praise of Wright and his acceptance of virtually every substantial point, hook, line and sinker. The few things where Kuhrt registers disagreement with his hero are few and very minor. My disagreements with Wright are much larger, but since there are also many points that Wright emphasises that I haven't found from any other source, and so I continue to think that Wright is well worth reading and learning from. I only wish he was better informed about Reformed theology. If he was, I think he would realise that the differences between him and us is neither as great as he thinks, nor as great as we tend to think.
Stephen Kuhrt
SPCK 2011
This is a short but readable book on the theology of N. T. Wright and how it might influence the local church for the better, written by a Church of England vicar, Stephen Kuhrt. The chapters run as follows:
Chapter one outlines Tom Wright's career both as a New Testament scholar and as a churchman (Wright is an ordained Anglican minister and was until recently the Bishop of Durham).
Chapter two discusses a number of issues and problems facing the 21st century church that Kuhrt obviously sees Wright's theology as a possible way of addressing.
Chapter three is an excellent and accurate summary of Wright's theological distinctives. For anyone who is unfamiliar with Wright's work, this chapter should be required reading.
In chapters four, five and six, Kuhrt explores how Wright's theological approach might reinvigorate and renew the church's work in the fields of pastoral issues, mission and the church's life of fellowship and worship. The final chapter is a challenge to the church to engage with Wright and accept at least some of what he is teaching.
My own view of Tom Wright has always been, and remains, mixed. Much of his focus is different from what I would call mainstream evangelicalism which can tend towards pietism and individualism. Wright's insistence on the gospel's social, political and corporate demands would be a shot in the arm for many such churches. On the other hand, there are times where I feel strongly that although Wright is usually correct in his affirmations - for example that Paul's doctrine of justification by faith must have an impact on how we handle church membership and Christian unity and equality, he is sometimes wrong in his denials - that justification is not about a sinner's righteous standing before a holy God.
If we read Wright with this twofold approach - being slow to reject his affirmations and even slower to accept his denials - there is much in Wright's theology I agree with Kuhrt that we need to engage with and accept for the benefit of our churches.
For the record, I welcome Wright's emphasis on the covenant and the Jewish roots of Christianity, his insistence that the gospel has important social and political implications alongside teaching about personal salvation, his recognition that the resurrection is as important a doctrine in its own right as Christ's atoning death, his analysis that the Christus Victor theme is more important to the biblical authors than evangelicals have traditionally recognised, that eschatology is central to the apostles' message, and that the Christian hope is not "to die and go to heaven" but to have everlasting life in a new renewed creation on earth, and that the Gospel's message of the Kingdom and the Epistles' message of salvation are closely linked, and that justification was used by Paul as a doctrine to explain the breaking down of barriers between Jew and Gentile.
Kuhrt's book is a useful tool in this ongoing dialogue. I feel that Kuhrt is overly gushing in his praise of Wright and his acceptance of virtually every substantial point, hook, line and sinker. The few things where Kuhrt registers disagreement with his hero are few and very minor. My disagreements with Wright are much larger, but since there are also many points that Wright emphasises that I haven't found from any other source, and so I continue to think that Wright is well worth reading and learning from. I only wish he was better informed about Reformed theology. If he was, I think he would realise that the differences between him and us is neither as great as he thinks, nor as great as we tend to think.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
The King of God's Kingdom
The King of God's Kingdom
by David Seccombe
Paternoster Press
David Seccombe's The King of God's Kingdom is a massive tome of over 600 pages, but it was so easy and enjoyable to read that it seemed shorter.
The book's subtitle is "A Solution to the Puzzle of Jesus". Seccombe identifies the "puzzle" in a series of questions at the beginning of the book. Essentially it is what is the relationship between the Jesus of the gospels and his teaching and the Christianity of his followers, the Christ of the letters, and the apostles' teaching. Or to put it another way, how does Jesus' gospel of the Kingdom of God with its historical, social and political implications fit in (if it does) with the apostles' gospel of new birth, salvation by faith, justification and so forth.
Seccombe's solution is not a radical one, but an evangelical one. His conclusion is that Jesus established the Kingdom of God by defeating the powers of this world including sin, death and Satan, but left it to his followers to extend the Kingdom to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). He writes (pp. 601-02):
As surely as the backbone of Satan's power was destroyed, God's kingdom was established in the world and the way was clear for men and women of all nations to be drawn to the fellowship of the crucified but victorious King-Messiah. The task of gathering the new age community Jesus gave to his followers. Having defeated the central rebellious power, he sent them out into lands which were still very much in the power of evil - much as a victorious general might divide his forces, sending them into the far reaches of a newly conquered land to declare his victory, offer amnesty, and a place in the new order to all who would lay down their arms and surrender their allegiance to the king.
The book reads in part like a harmony of the gospels, but it is much more than this. It's main concern is to show how what Jesus did during his life is connected with his life's work (including his death and resurrection) of establishing God's Kingdom on earth.
My only real criticism is that because the author has one foot in the camp of the academy and one foot in the camp of the community of faith, he sometimes overstresses the fact that many scholars do not take the gospel accounts of miracles and even Jesus' teachings at face value. Time after time, he announces that many do not accept this or that before then giving for the most part fairly standard conservative reasons why we should, in the end, accept what the gospels say. This was a weakness. Perhaps he could have dealt with this issue in a preliminary chapter or an appendix.
Despite this, I really enjoyed reading this book and would warmly recommend it.
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