parables of a prodigal world

Have you ever had a piece of correspondence you had to write that was so important that you were just never satisfied with how it sounded, no matter how hard you worked on it? Those of you who stop by here on occasion might know that I've written a book called Parables of a Prodigal Son: The Theologically Grounded Testimony of an Ordinary Scoundrel . I've just completed the final edit and am about to start shopping it around. But since Wright's vision was so integral to the overall theme of the book, I decided that I would send him a review copy with the (slim) hope that he might give it a look. So over the last few days, I've been working on this cover letter. It's changed about a 1,000 times in my head and about a dozen times on paper. This is what I've got so far, and come hell or high water, I'm gonna send it out on Monday, unless anyone has any comments that may convince me to change a word or two, or a sentence, or the whole darned thing. Otherwise, I ...

This might be foolhardy, even blasphemous. Let me say in advance that there is absolutely, positively no way to adequately condense or summarize the Bible or its message. Its full and complete meaning and importance can only be glimpsed in its entirety, and moreover, in a lifetime spent engulfed in that entirety. Having said that, and with the utmost fear and trembling, inasmuch as summaries, doctrinal statements, and the like are useful (to allow for packaging of larger truths), I have listed here 13 bible verses that, for me, are critical as boundary-markers for the entire biblical narrative, the story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, with the Gospel of Jesus Christ at its center. Again, these 13 verses alone will get you nowhere, but rather, once you've grappled with the entire text, these verses, I believe, can best encapsulate the message contained within that entire text. OK, enough preliminaries. Here we go: Gen. 1:1-31 : In the beginning when God created the heave...

"Preach the Gospel by all means possible; and if it is truly necessary, you may even use words." -- St. Francis of Assisi I think ol' Francis would be proud of this. What do you think? I'd probably have 3-4 different people playing the lead role (different races, etc.), just to emphasize the holistic/cosmic nature of the message. But otherwise...beautiful!! Grace and Peace, Raffi

Here's some good stuff from around the Blogosphere this week... Byron Smith gives Calvin's take on loving the unlovely . Mofast Manna on the KJV-Only controversy . Shane Claibourne's dream of atonement . Nathan Gann indexes a wealth of reviews/comments/miscellany on N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope . BW3 on The New Perspective on Paul and the Law . (Blast from the Past: My own take on why the New Perpective was necessary ). Favorite video this week: Turn the other cheek, but if that fails, put a cap in their ass: Grace and Peace, Raffi