N.T. Wright on preaching the whole Bible via one text

The Whole Sweep Of Scripture from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Interviewer: "How should we read the scriptures?"
Bishop Wright: "Frequently and thoroughly."

Bishop Wright speaks a word to the whole church about reading scripture as it was meant to be read. For the preacher, I found the his word at the end of the video (around the 6 minute mark) especially valuable. He uses a metaphor about seeing the countryside through a window. Only by pressing in towards the window does one get a wide view of the countryside beyond the pane. In worship each week, we press in towards one text in order to see the sweeping countryside of the biblical story. This runs somewhat contrary to the way we often isolate texts in worship, especially in the free church tradition (where we may only read that one text in worship!). I wonder, what ways do you help the congregation keep the whole story in view during worship each week?

Illustration-a-day: Judgment is a good thing.

N. T. Wright, one of the top Christian thinkers of our day, reminds us, that while the word judgment carries negative overtones for a good many people in our postmodern world, “throughout the Bible God's coming judgment is a good thing, something to be celebrated, longed for, yearned over. It causes people to shout for joy and the trees of the field to clap their hands. In a world of systematic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance, and oppression, the thought that there might come a day when the wicked are firmly put in their place and the poor and weak are given their due is the best news there can be. Faced with a world in rebellion, a world full of exploitation and wickedness, a good God must be a God of judgment.”

N. T. Wright,Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church(San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008), 137.