Salvation (Understanding Biblical Themes)

By Joel B. Green

Book Overview

Each book in this series provides an in-depth look at a major recurring biblical theme and its lasting theological influence. The series is designed to enhance the reader's understanding of our... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0827238312
• ISBN13: 9780827238312
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Chalice Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

After "Amazing Grace" (the movie) and the gospel according to George W. Bush, how might one be saved

Joel Green begins with a quote from an 18th-century Anglican priest, John Wesley (of Methodist acclaim), and identifies problems encountered by a 21st-century reading of "salvation." Green contends that "threats of hellfire and damnation..." (preface, 2) cloud views of salvation when imposed upon collective consciousness. Green employs Wesley's introductory quote to stake a position that such clouded views of salvation are mere caricatures. Green argues that salvation has become distorted by such images, and favors, instead, salvation as a "journey" in order to focus on "...the biblical message." Green advocates the image of the journey to distinguish stale images of belief, such as I have ascribed to one political theology or cinematic sentimentalism in the title for this review. Unlike belief, faith inducts one into a journey of salvation. Green's appeal to faith will attract a broad Christian audience. Therefore, faith introduces the very Author of scriptures to the daily journey. Said another way, John Newton's hymn, "Amazing Grace," might be re-written by Green to say "...that sav-ed wretches like us," because salvation is not just an individual's aim in his view, but the ongoing process of Christian community and of the entire creation. If salvation were a "goal" in Green's view, then salvation might neither emphasize what God has done in sacred history nor the final prophetic outcome. Rather, emphasis in Green's text is on what Christians are doing today to become Christ-like. Such emphasis on the daily journey makes this text a scriptural tapestry that is not easy to characterize. So, too, the scriptures themselves resist caricatures.