Product Description

This latest volume in the Christian Doctrine in Global Perspective series mines the Old and New Testaments for insight into the notion of salvation articulated in Revelation 7:10, in which the gathered multitudes render praise to God "who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" Christopher J. H. Wright, renowned scholar and champion for the church in the Majority World, considers the amazing promise in the picture painted here: that God is gathering together a people from every tribe, people and language, delivering them from evil in fulfillment of the Scriptures.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #305303 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 201 pages

From the Publisher
* Includes questions for reflection and discussion
* Offers insights into biblical salvation informed by global scholarship and experience

About the Author
Christopher J. H. Wright (Ph.D., Cambridge) was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His doctorate is in Old Testament ethics. He taught Old Testament in India for five years (1983-88) at Union Biblical Seminary, and then returned to the faculty of All Nations Christian College, a missionary training school in England, where he was principal from 1993-2001.

Wright is now the international director of the Langham Partnership International (known in the United States as John Stott Ministries), providing literature, scholarships and preaching training for pastors in Majority World churches and seminaries.

He has written several books including commentaries on Deuteronomy and Ezekiel, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God and Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament. An ordained Anglican, he serves on the staff of All Souls Church, Langham Place, London, England.

Customer Reviews

Great Intro to the Meta-narrative
Given the deeply ingrained modernism that the Western church has inherited from the Enlightenment period, we in the church tend to get stuck in the rut of propositional truth (which has its place), and we find ourselves reading the NT epistles over and over, as these are the easiest, most direct source of it. In doing so we miss the fact that the Bible is largely made up of narrative and has so much more to say than just propositional truth. At its core, the Bible is not a handbook for living, nor a textbook about God. It is the story of God -- a story that starts at the beginning of all things, and ends at the end. It is a story that we today are a part of and have a place in.

Christopher Wright's book SBTOG does a wonderful job of explaining this story - what the purpose is, who the characters are, and why it's meaningful to us today. There are a handful of other similar books out there (The Drama of Scripture, Far As the Curse is Found) that are also good. SBTOG takes a more thematic approach to the story, whereas TDOS and FASTCIF walk step by step through the events of the story. All of these books are good, though I would rank them, from highest to lowest, as SBTOG, TDOS, and then FASTCIF.

SBTOG is more of an entry-level overview of the Bible story, and it would make an excellent read for someone who wants a better idea of how the Bible as a whole has meaning and should impact our lives. Nevertheless, it can also serve as a reminder to even the seasoned theologians, who spend a lot of time on the little details, that there is an overarching story and plan of God's within which we play our part. I highly recommend this book.

Here's a wonderful summary of book's main point, from the book itself:

"Salvation in the Bible, because it is embodied in these historical covenants, is not merely a set of doctrines to be learned. Salvation is not just a subjective personal experience to be enjoyed by myself. Salvation is not some mythical future state of paradise that I long to arrive at by whatever religious methods I think will achieve it. Salvation is fundamentally a story - The Story. Salvation is constituted within the all-encompassing biblical meta-narrative that forms the biblical worldview.... The gospel is not somebody's theory. It is not somebody's good idea. The gospel is the good news about what the biblical God has done, is doing, and will finally do, within the history of the world." (pg 96)