Like a number of others who I know pop into this blog, I'm waiting impatiently for the release of Beverley Gaventa's commentary on Romans, in the New Testament Library.
Having just finished three sermons on Romans 8 I've been discovering the strengths and weaknesses of some of the standard commentaries. I deliberately omitted N T Wright's new volume on chapter 8, as I wanted to have a conversation with the various exegetical friends I've made over the years - Cranfield, Dunn, Moo, Fitzmyer, Witherington, Longenecker, Kruse, Gorman, and Wright's full commentary from 20002 (in the NIB).
They all have something worthwhile to say, but what I missed in a few of them was the "so what?" question. Several of them did ask "so what" with compelling urgency and theological clarity. The challenge is not to reduce the power of the text to disrupt our intellectual status quo; a text does this by deconstructing our assumptions and recreating a vision of God adequate to such texts as:
- "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
- "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?"
- "No in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."
- "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
No commentary can, or should, do all our work for us as we wrestle with texts that must always come at us demanding our full attention, disturbing the peace of a mind made up, and daring us to make our own very personal response and risk the truth of the text. Two important questions 1) What are we to make of texts like these? 2) What will texts like these make of us if we take them to heart, think them through, and live into the realities they express?
On this occasion, on 8.28-39, I found it was mainly Wright, Dunn and Gorman who helped with the "so what" questions. But I gained from that wider conversation with those others I invited to my desk.
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