I\u2019m an 8 in the Enneagram<\/a>. I am always confident about everything I say!<\/p>\nBut besides that, there is a theological story that undergirds those things about which I am confident, and for which I argue: the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the story within the story that lends unity to the whole.<\/p>\n
The cross itself can be interpreted in any number of ways.\u00a0But the cross itself also consistently places itself before us as the measure for our own faithfulness (or lack thereof). It is not only something we interpret, it also interprets us.<\/p>\n
When Paul is challenged by other apostles, he invites the Corinthians to measure them each against the gospel of the crucified and his own embodiment of it: \u201cI die daily.\u201d \u201cAlways carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in your mortal body.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Mark 8, when the climax of Jesus\u2019 story stands on the edge of a knife, between Jesus\u2019 self-proclaimed cross-destiny and Peter\u2019s desire for a different kind of Messiah, Jesus not only says, \u201cThe Son of Man must suffer and die,\u201d but also \u201cIf anyone wants to come after me, let that person deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gospel story is, at its heart, the story of Christ crucified. It is the story of the God who looks upon His people, and His son, as they have nothing, make themselves nothing\u2013and blesses that nothingness with abundance.<\/p>\n
There is a narrative dynamic of life out of death, a narrative dynamic of power out of weakness, a narrative dynamic of Kingdom abundance overcoming worldly scarcity that delineates the Christian story.<\/p>\n
So we take up this narrative, and we interpret and it and judge our readings against the narrative by which we are saved.<\/p>\n
When 2 Timothy says all scripture is God-breathed, that breath of God is placed in a larger context: \u201cYou have known the scriptures that are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n
See? It\u2019s not just \u201cscripture,\u201d as such, that is good and according to the will of God.<\/p>\n
It is \u201cscripture with Christ as its end and goal\u201d that is the story of God.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t worry about narrative readings of scripture leading us astray. I don\u2019t worry, because the standard by which such tellings are judged is this: does your reading highlight our world-denying, economy-inverting call to give up all that we are in faith that God will bring abundance? Does it call us to make good on the summons we\u2019ve said we\u2019ll heed\u2013to follow Christ along the road of death, trusting God to give the glory rather than seizing such glory for ourselves?<\/p>\n
The story of the cross is the story within the story. Interpret that cross how we will, the church, and God\u2019s people individually, are known when our own story becomes that cruciform narrative that makes us His own.<\/p>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s guest post is the second of two by\u00a0J. R. Daniel Kirk, assistant professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary who blogs over at\u00a0Storied Theology. Daniel is the author of\u00a0Unlocking Romansand\u00a0Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? Here he continues his thoughts on why the Bible should be read as story, not a\u00a0theological\u00a0textbook\u2013even if narrative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>Today\u2019s guest post is the second of two by\u00a0J. R. Daniel Kirk<\/a>, assistant professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary who blogs over at\u00a0Storied Theology<\/a>. Daniel is the author of\u00a0Unlocking Romans<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=inspirandinca-20&l=as2&o=1&a=080103910X\")
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