Regerneration precedes faith. That is the the glory of the Gospel!

Actually I am working on the New Perspective on Jude. Since Mary was a perpetual virgin, Jude could not be the Lord’s brother. A cousin maybe, but not his brother.

Seriously, I have been reading N. T. Wright since 1993 (where have those 17 years gone?!) and appreciate what he gets right. It just seems that Wright is only minimally right theologically.

Jeff

Don’t let Jeff fool you. We are all N.T. Wright lovers here. In fact, I changed my name so that my first two initials reflect my appreciation for the bishop. I have actually started calling myself the Bishop of Richmond Hill. It is not easy preaching a Gospel of free table fellowship. I am thinking about writing “The New Perspective on the Guy Who Wrote Hebrews!” I think Jeff is working on the New Perspective on Peter.

Note: I trust everyone understands the sarcasm with which this comment is replete.

I brought up the N. T. Wright connection because Dr. Gaffin was addressing the foundational nature of Acts and so there are aspects of its narrative which are not repeatable and it made me think of Wright’s ongoing play analogy which seemed to contradict the insights of Gaffin. He was correct to note that Wright was not commenting on Acts as such when he talked about the 5th act. However I still believe that Acts contains significant unrepeatable elements (ie, the foundational nature of the apostles and prophets whereas we are building the superstructure) that make Wright’s analogy less attractive.

For whatever it is worth…

Jeff

Thanks for that .. to be honest when you said Acts – I missed the play analogy and thought you meant Acts (the book)

Nonetheless I shall look that up…

Can I thank you all for your efforts – every Friday morning I look forward to downloading the mp3. Its very much appreciated – here in the UK, we are not exactly going wild for reformed theology, with one or two exceptions.

God bless

Colin

Good to hear from you. As Dr. Gaffin pointed out, Bishop Wright does not talk this way with direct reference to Acts as far as I am aware. The idea is found in his article “How Can the Bible Be Authoritative?” which can be found online here: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Bible_Authoritative.htm. This was originally two lectures, the Laing and Griffith Thomas Lectures of 1989 and appeared in Vox Evangelica 21 (1991): 7-32. Toward the end of the article Wright brings up the idea of our being in act 5 of a Shakespearean type play. As I say I have not run across this in his other works, although it is likely also in his books on biblical authority.

Thanks

Colin