Comments on: Stott on the New Perspective

By: Parableman

Parableman — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 21:36:12 +0000

Rey asked in a comment on this post what the New Perspective on Paul is, and I decided my response was worth a whole post. It’s a three-stage thing. It started with E.P.Sanders in the 1970s, who argued that people…

By: Mark Heath

Mark Heath — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 15:58:55 +0000

I shall look forward to your post. Stott does actually think of Romans as a Christian “manifesto”, although I’m sure he would want to claim that he is sensitive to context. He likes Barth’s concept of “utter loyalty” to Paul, which allows him to say what he does say, and not force him to say things we might want him to say.

Wright has gone so far as to say that Luther’s application of Romans is justified, even if his exegesis missed the mark somewhat. I’m hoping to get his Romans for Everyone books fairly soon to get the “New Perspective for Dummies”.

By: Sven

Sven — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 15:27:36 +0000

Interesting post, I’m preparing one that discusses Wright’s view on the nature of Israel in Romans 9-11 and your last two posts have been helpful.

I see where Stott is coming from, though I don’t think he takes the historical context of Paul seriously enough, and talks of ‘wrath’, ‘sin’ and ‘law’ etc as though Paul were writing a timeless systematic theology devoid of context.

Wright in particular is eager to combat what he sees as Reformed theologians simply reading Calvin and Luther into the Romans text because they don’t take the historical nature of the text and Paul’s worldview into account, and who by doing so have cluttered and obscured what Paul was actually trying to say.