Customer Reviews

The Last Word: Scripture and the Authority of God--Getting Beyond the Bible Wars

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Both in scholarship and general life styles, liberals and conservatives are locked in hopeless battle. "You don't care about people!" vs "You ignore God's word!" is common rhetoric throughout the declining churches of North Amercia. Bishop Wright offers a new way of stepping beyond these unity destroying, fruitless debates about the Bible, a way of hope and new life.

Bishop Wright takes a fresh look at the Bible and its purposes. In doing so he offers a new way to work together to fulfill God's purposes that goes beyond both entrenched positions. His way of doing so offers hope for all, liberal and conservative. He challenges us all to fulfill God's purposes in creating the Bible.

While it is a stand alone book, this book is best read in combination with Wright's *Simply Christian*. New hope and new life are there in abundance in both books, a way out of the trap of liberal vs conservative dogmatized thinking.

Yes, as another reviewer commented, this book is meat instead of milk. It is meat tenderized for a toddler, when compared with the meat offered in scholarly theological books. This book is for anyone and everyone who wants hope and new life.

One reader at a time, we can change the world around us for the better. That, in the end, is what we are commanded to do. This book offers us a new way to do so.

N. T. Wright always has a lot to say, and much we should hear. While some of his works get quite lengthy and detailed, this little book is a gem, getting right to the point, and challenging all Christians to reclaim a positive understanding of Biblical Authority. If all believers could claim such a perspective, we would have much less dis-unity in the body of Christ. A must read for anyone who takes the Bible seriously, and hopes everyone else will, too.

Once again, N.T. Wright's academic acumen shines forth in his book The Last Word. He doesn't sugar-coat the issues the Christian church faces when it improperly uses translates/uses the Bible to formulate theologies that exclude others. For those who want a no nonsense book on the subject, one with good recommendations for any church to use, this is the one!

In this little book Wright does an impressive job of helping to ease the current "Bible Wars" which dominate most churches and academia. Though the book is very concise and thus cannot treat of this rather large issue in depth, it's a great introduction to a helpful way of understanding Holy Scripture. By helping to make sense of the morass we find ourselves in today with Biblical interpretation, Wright plots a course for the future.

For anyone unfamiliar with N.T. Wright, this would be a great introduction to the thoughts of perhaps the premier theologian of our time. While an Anglican bishop, his theology as personified in this little volume is Biblically based 100%, with just enough insight to irritate both wild eyed liberals and equally wild eyed conservatives. The best of theologians

'The Last Word', no doubt a rather odd title when taken in a certain way, is Premier British scholar NT Wright's contribution to getting hold of what it means to submit to the bible as *the last word* for all matters spiritual and ethical. Here, he surveys and critiques the major approaches taken by the church throughout the centuries on what that subject before offering his own - dubbed the 'five-act' hermeneutics. Wright's approach makes much of a narrative reading. He invites us to see the bible as telling a grand story from beginning to end. We can properly see where scripture is leading us to only when we find our place within that larger story. Therein, we imbibe the values and praxis of a people committed to God's/Christ's authority and God's work of renewing his creation through the cross and the power of the Spirit.

Personally, Wright's approach has enriched my reading of scripture. Rather than treating each pericope as a completely self-contained word for the day, I learn to ask what relation it has on the grand scheme of things. It has helped me see that many of the NT stories, doctrines and instructions have to do with God's already-and-not-yet kingdom. This has further concretized for me what it means to be church - not a loose collection of individuals using the bible as a DIY manual to help ourselves but a people called to participate in God's cosmic redemption.

It is a quick read for those familiar with Wright's critical realist approach discussed at length in his magnum opus 'New Testament and the People of God'. I reckon that given much postmodern reinvention of Christianity and the rise of biblical illiteracy in our day, this is a helpful tool that will help steer the ship back on course. For a follow-up read, I would recommend Ben Witherington's 'The Living Word' which will take us further along in our appreciation of what sort of book the Bible is and guide us through some practical issues people have in reading and obeying it.

Engagingly written. Author has a view that agrees with the other conservative scholars that I read. Sadly, I have never heard a preacher approach scripture from this angle. You will be refreshed by this. If you know your pastor well, you can suggest he read it. Also short and to the point. It will help you approach scripture from a new perspective.

This author is a renowned scholar of Scripture and as such carries a weight of many books and articles. I thought that he brought up many points that were valid, but he seems to "pick on" the church in the United States as the culprit for mis-readings. I think the Anglican Church, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury has just as many problems and just as many "discussions" as the Episcopal Church. But that aside, this book is for Meat Eaters not Milk Drinkers. He does call for calm discussion and not mean rhetoric, listening rather than just talking to be heard. His take on some subjects are different than mine, but that is what it is all about...the Holy Spirit talking to him in one way, and to me in another.