N.T. Wright Project

My theology over the past year has been developed and refined into what I describe as “Kingdom of God” theology.  I’m still learning what exactly that means, but the ideas of NT Wright have been one of the primary influences on this development in my life.  Essentially K.O.G. theology recognizes that we live in a time of inaugurated eschatology, that with his resurrection, Christ ushered in a new inbreaking of God’s kingdom on earth, but it has not yet been fully realized and our hope is in the ultimate restoration of this earth, which is still to come.  This tension is why we pray every Sunday “thy kingdom come” while at the same time recognizing that we can claim renewal in the broken areas of our lives and our world here and now because the kingdom is here and now too.

So what is our role as Christians during this time of inaugurated eschatology?  What does it mean  for our lives now?  We are able to do kingdom work, in fact we are commanded to do so.  But what does this look like?  It looks like care for those who have need around us, being an advocate for justice, creation care, proclamation of truth….  But our engagement in these things does not bring about the ultimate establishment of God’s kingdom.  We are not responsible for this.  That, ultimately, is God’s decision, as the New Testament frequently reminds us.  The work we do does not in some sense help to further establish the kingdom.  So what is it’s purpose?  All this is very confusing, and I am still discerning what exactly that means for how we are to live our lives.

These questions have been especially relevant to me of late as I am seeking to discern vocation and call in my life right now.  And while I don’t anticipate those questions to leave me soon, I was blessed to read a passage in NT Wright which clearly articulated what it is I hope my life will look like.  While it doesn’t spell out where I am eventually supposed to work and the specific tasks with which I am to fill my day, it beautifully describes the overall picture to which I strive and gives an excellent why to it:

“The work we do in the present, then, gains its full significance from the eventual design in which it is meant to belong. Applied to the mission of the church, this means that we must work in the present for the advance signs of that eventual state of affairs when God is ‘all in all,’ when his kingdom has come and his will is done ‘on earth as in heaven.’ This will of course be radically different from the kind of work we would engage in if our sole task was to save souls for a disembodied heaven or simply to help people enjoy a fulfilling relationship with God as though that were the end of the matter. It will also be significantly different from the kind of work we might undertake if our sole task was to forget any God dimension at all and to try simply to make life better within the continuation of the world as it is” (Surprised by Hope, 211).

This in some ways helps to articulate why I am excited about the pairing of a Master of Divinity and a Master of Social Work and gives me a helpful framework from which to dream and evaluate…  There is indeed purpose in the things we engage in every day during this post-resurrection/ pre-ultimate-resotration time.  May we all be striving for advance signs of the eventual design of God’s ultimate reign on earth.