¶1[music] Hello and welcome to the Ask Ant Wright Anything podcast. The program where we answer your questions about Jesus, the Bible, and the life of faith. I'm Mike Bird from Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia. And I'm joined by >> Tom Wright from Wickliffe Hall in Oxford, but also from the west coast of Scotland. >> Uh Tom, what's what's new in your world?
¶2Anything new and fascinating happening? all sorts of things going on. I've been um trying to finish my little book on Christian nationalism, which um foolishly I agreed to do. I say foolishly because it's actually been far more of a struggle than I expected it would be because I did an initial lecture um which I thought I'd said what I wanted to say and then when the publishers said turn this into a little book, I thought, well, that's all right. I can do that.
¶3But actually, there's been so many turns and twists on the way. So, I'm still trying to trying to wrap that one up. um that that that's been preoccupying me. But we're up in Scotland. We've had family staying, which has been a great delight.
¶4We've been on the beach. We've they've been playing golf. My niece won't let me join them, but I'm happy to say that my 10-year-old grandson um actually made three birdies on the little course here the other day, which was great. You know, that's one of the things that keeps you coming back when you when you're scoring like that. >> Okay.
¶5Well, I'm well, I'm all about the birdies as a Michael bird, but my birdies may be slightly different. >> Of course. >> Uh, what's I guess for me, what's new, I've uh do a little bit of traveling. Got to preach in a wonderful Anglican church yesterday up in Queensland, which for me is like Zion and Melbourne is a bit like Babylon in some respects. I say this as a as a native Queenslander.
¶6And yeah, I've got my own book coming out, Imperium, which is about the Roman Empire and the church in the 3rd century. So that's what's new with me. But we have some new questions this week about the what's the best version of the Anglican tradition. There's a gap theory in Genesis 1 and will the earth melt with fire according to second Peter 3. >> So let's dive in.
¶7Tom, our first question is from Matthew C. of Fort Worth, Texas, who also dabbles in Rochester, New York. And this is about moving from the Catholic to Anglican Anglican tradition. I may have to abbreviate his question a little bit. It's it's quite uh lengthy.
¶8He says, "Hello, Dr. Wright. Thank you for your ministry, your teachings along with the whole premier unbelievable team. Saved my faith during a rough patch of doubt. I am grateful for what you do.
¶9And Matthew says, I love the Catholic Church, but I'm planning to leave it. This is not out of bad will and I would love to stay, but there are things which have greatly been affecting my faith and my wife's faith in a negative way, such as legalism, not receiving the wine during communion, judgmental homalies, paple, infallibility, and some Marian dogmas. and he says,"I really appreciate the Anglican tradition, but the situation in the USA is rather complex. There's at least three streams of Anglicanism. There's the mainline original, the Episcopal Church.
¶10There's the Anglican realignment, the Anglican Church in North America, the ACNA, and then there's a variety of continuing Anglican movements. These include things like the Reformed Episcopal Church and and and other similar bodies." says, "I understand a lot of the reasons for joining any of these three, but none are perfect. In a place like Rochester, New York, there's some medium-sized Episcopal church and one or two smaller sized ACNA churches and continuing Anglican churches. If I leave the Catholic church, I feel a lot of anxiety of whether I will be able to find a home in the Anglic Anglican tradition in a place like Rochester. uh when dealing with small children, I don't I want them to grow up in an old person church or in a dying tradition like some people talk about the Episcopal church uh being.
¶11And then he goes on to raise issues like on the one hand he he likes the idea of female ordination in the Episcopal church which they don't have in other places. But then in the Episcopal church they also have some views he's not sure about about same-sex marriage and abortion. So to sum up um he asks what would you say to somebody in my position who deeply loves the anglican tradition but is faced with the practical realities of church politics, demographic realities, ministry opportunities, raising a young family, and being unsure if the conservative or liberal tradition is more faithful to the Bible. I dislike having to choose and I do not like cunning people out. Can I just be generically Anglican or generically Christian?
¶12Thank you for your time. And I say to Matt, uh, well, welcome to the Anglican tradition. It's a matter of finding which stream. Uh, Tom, you and I have friends all over the Anglican church in North America, in the Episcopal Church, in the ACNA, and maybe in a few other of these peculiar pockets. Uh, Tom, what's your advice for Matthew?
¶13>> Yes. Well, Matthew, I mean, in a sense, join the club. When I was um a young man growing up in the far northeast of England, there was one Anglican parish and that was the parish church and though it had a couple of daughter churches, but it was all very much in the same tradition and under the same recctor. And I just assumed that where you were and the way they did it there, that was basically what you go with. And just like as I say, you don't you you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family.
¶14And if you're if you're born into a family, then the siblings you've got are the siblings you've got. And the the strange uncles and aunts you've got are the strange uncles and aunts you've got and you work at making that family work as best you can. Um being as much of a of a coherent and wise and mutually sporting unit as you can. You don't sort of uh start think well most people don't start thinking oh if only I had a different family so maybe I should um push off out of this one and go and find some other people that I like more. Um, and you know that's that's fairly fairly obvious, but people don't think like that when it comes to churches.
¶15And of course, the idea of a church family is is really really important. And uh the the the way that we have come in as very it's a very modern thing. People until very recently in history didn't have this idea of of all sorts of um smogers board of ecclesial choices. You just had your local church and that was that. Um and and so we have made a rod for our own backs, I think, with our individualism and our our tendency to to to separate.
¶16Um and and there there are tragedies about that because um ultimately in the New Testament, Jesus prays to the father that all his followers may be one. Paul urges the Ephesians which I suspect is a circular to wider group of churches that they should all be absolutely one and should see their different gifts as contributing to a single body and that remains the goal. Um uh at the same time the reason for the reforms of the 16th century and for the reason why people like Luther and his followers, Calvin and his followers etc decided that Rome was simply not an option anymore and they had to do something different was that they really believed Rome had abandoned uh scripture and had abandoned the gospel. Now um life has gone on since then how things have not stayed the same and while I would agree with you about um worries about papal infallibility and the Marian doctrines dogmas um there are many things about Roman Catholicism which remain um very central and thoroughgoing. I mean they say the creed and I know many Roman Catholic theologians who believe every clause in the creed just as much as I do and since the creed is the great symbol of unity and in a sense what's the problem there the answer is well if you bring in other dogmas and say that they are just as important as the central ones about God and Jesus and resurrection and the Holy Spirit um then that is kind of adding to um the this body of creedal um unifying dogma and and that's that's been a that's been a worry again and again.
¶17So I understand why somebody in your position might say um that actually there are lots of things about Rome which which really um I can't cope with anymore. The problem then is that if you're then as it were out in the wilderness looking around and walking around a big town like Rochester, New York and saying well there's this church on this corner and that church on that corner. I I think that I I would want to turn the question round and instead of saying which of these is the ideal church or the closest to the ideal churches if you've got as you say you've got young family then I think the primary thing should be where will they your young family find the best help friendship fellowship um Bible teaching and basically a happy Christian experience where going to church on a Sunday morning and taking part in uh uh church-based activities in the rest of the week becomes something that they delight in and that they look forward to and that they are feel that they're part they really are part of this. There will be other questions whichever church you go to there will be other questions further down the line. Um but uh the the the the imperative to make sure that the family can be a worshipping family together.
¶18I think that's really really important. And if if you and your spouse um can go with that and even if the church that seems best for the kids isn't necessarily the one that you would have chosen completely left to yourselves, then you may have to say, "Well, that's where we are at the moment." Um and I don't like the idea of church hopping at all. That that that seems to make no sense biblically. That is just as bad in my view as any of the um teachings introduced by Roman dogmas and so on. But that that is where we are.
¶19So I think go with the imperative for the health the Christian health of the family. And when you hear a sermon or the children hear a Sunday school talk which you don't agree with or they don't agree with then sit down over Sunday lunch or some other time during the week and say let's talk about that. Let's look at the Bible. Let's get some helpful book and and look up some answers. So don't expect that you're going to find the perfect church.
¶20When it comes to the different strands of Anglicanism, I followed all of that in America uh about 15 years ago when I was working as a bishop in the Church of England. And it was it was something I had to do to find out what was going on in America and try and see if I could help resolve some things there which I and others failed to do largely. Um but uh ha having said that things have moved on a lot in the last 15 years. new movements have come up and as Mike said he and I know many people in many of these new movements and we know that they are all trying to find a way forward and I pray and hope that after this flurry of all these new movements there will at some point in the strange mercy of God be a time when they can all have some sort of reprosh and again to Ephesians 4 where Paul talks about the different gifts that people are given within the body of Christ. But then it's very clear that these different gifts are not meant to divide the church so that you go off that way and they go off that way.
¶21These gifts are all in order to sustain and develop and mature the unity of the body. And somehow we've just lost sight of that. And this in America gets bundled up with American politics and sociology and so on in in very unfortunate ways. We in the UK have our own versions of that um historically and many other parts of the world do. But I'll but we've got to keep this ideal before us.
¶22The unity of the church on the one hand, the health of the family on the other. Try prayerfully to find a way for the family which will then gradually you hope and pray be able to help you and your family as a whole to be part of what might increasingly be uh a church which through which God is addressing the needs of the world. The danger of course is that when we're looking at the church or this local church, we forget that the church is there to serve God's purposes for the kingdom. So, one of the questions to ask is, what is this particular body of believers doing to set forth the kingdom of God on earth as in heaven? Um, at least by way of anticipation in the present time.
¶23And if you're constantly asking that question as well as constantly seeking the health for your family spiritually, then I think that's probably as good as you're going to be able to get. >> Yeah, >> that's good advice, Tom. I it's treating churches like a consumerous choice like you're choosing a toothpaste is not a good idea. But I mean I I I certainly sympathize with the idea of trying to find a church that is faithful to scripture is going to have a good ministry particularly for children. The only thing I want to add on that is don't just think of a church that's good for you.
¶24Think of a church where you will be good for them, where you'll have something to do and something to offer and serve in whatever ways. And I think there's there's good and bad Episcopal and ACNA churches. You just have to >> go with a lot of prayer and a bit of discernment what's going to lead to some mutual encouragement in these churches. So, uh, Matt, I hope we've, uh, answered your question there. Uh, but let's press on, Tom.
¶25We now have a question from my part of the world. A question from Mark Alammanogs in Sydney, Australia. And this is about the gap theory in Genesis 1. This is what Mark says. Hello Tom.
¶26Just recently came across your podcast which I have found enlightening in particular the way you expound the theology based on the scriptures. I now complaces one of our teaching pastors often quote you. My question is a puzzling one as I've always believed in the gap theory as found in Genesis 1 verse one and Genesis 1:2. And I would like to know your thoughts on this theory. If I can recap and uh explain this, the gap theory assumes that there is a gap of millions of years potentially between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.
¶27And it's in that gap where you get the expulsion of Satan and the wicked angels from heaven. It's where you've got the first creation of the earth, maybe even something of dinosaurs traveling around or living on Earth until they go extinct and then you get the creation of the world. Uh Tom, do you do you have any particular thoughts on the gap theory that there is a gap between the first two verses of Genesis? I I confess this is not an area that has ever either troubled me or caused me to have to go and look things up and work it out for myself because I suspect that the gap theory socalled is a way of trying to cope with what I see as a false problem between um an overliteral reading of Genesis where you have okay here are the six days bang bang bang bang bang bang and then other people coming along and saying Well, if you look at astronomy, if you look at geology, it really does look as though it was more than six periods of 24 hours. And it it I I I get frustrated by this because to be honest um the idea that it has to be six days or something approximating there too is is a dogma of modern American Protestantism which most Christians in most parts of the world at most periods of history would not have been bothered about at all.
¶28Um, and when all the biology and all the astronomy that was done in the 18th and 19th centuries came to light and people realized that all the evidence, scientific evidence, good scientific evidence, not not um not deliberately atheistic scientific evidence, if I could put it like that, was pointing to a much larger and longer process by which God made the world. There were many devout, wise, conservative theologians, people like Warfield and Princeton who said, "Well, that's how God did it then." In other words, it's not a matter of creation or evolution and and then having to have a gap um in order to allow for the the sequence of days then to work themselves out or something like that. No, it's a matter of um Genesis 1 being like an an extraordinary great tableau or poem. Um and I know people object to that and say Genesis 1 isn't poetry. It's it's it comes out as pros, but poetry is perhaps the wrong word.
¶29It's it's an ancient way of writing which is a way of saying look at the meaning of this. It's about what God is actually up to and to divide it into specific days is a rationalist modernist attempt to tie things down which Genesis 1 actually leaves open. There's so many things going on in Genesis 1 which are not about um the at the chronology of six days like for instance when human beings are made in the image of God. Um, an awful lot of people don't realize that in the ancient world it was kings, monarchs who were said to be in the divine image. And the idea that all human beings are kings and priests, this is a whole new thing.
¶30And the idea of heaven and earth, as people like John Walton have argued, um, this is actually not about what God happened to do in this period of 24 hours. It's about God making his creation as a temple. And instead of all those ancient ideas in other cultures at the time about some strange, dark, wicked god taking a bit of mud and a bit of something else and throwing them together and and this odd thing called creation coming about. It's it's a a picture of incredible beauty and power and joy, a sense of God fulfilling his long-term desire to make a place, a world of heaven and earth together into which he could come and be at home. a a world which is then uh symbolized and anticipated in the tabernacle in the wilderness, Exodus 40 and in Solomon's temple in first kings 8 and so on.
¶31So once you start seeing those dimensions of Genesis 1 then the idea that ah let's have a gap um between Genesis 1 one and one two or something um this this is an unnecessary answer to an unwarranted question in my view. Um, I I'm sorry if that's upsetting some, but um uh I do think we need to lighten up on this one. and particularly those who've been brought up with very strict dogmatic teaching about all this in in American churches particularly you you need to to to say to yourselves let's have a look at the wider tradition at other ways of interpreting because this has become part of American subculture especially since the Scopes trial about 100 years ago um and it's affected American culture in a way which isn't true for the rest of the world and wasn't true for the rest of Christendom. And it seems to me this is one of many ways in which we Westerners and um my dear American friends need to step back from their own cultural context and say maybe there are better, wiser, more biblical, [clears throat] more Christian ways of reading this text. So I'm sorry if that's not what people expected to hear, but that's certainly how I would come at it now.
¶32>> Yeah, Tom, I completely agree. Uh, you know, there are some people who try to argue for a literal six day creation, but I think they've got to run rough shed over the genre of Genesis one and how it functions, you know, within the cannon, how it relates to other ancient neareastern literature, and they're trying to make it do something that it wasn't designed to do. And certainly with the gap theory, what it's trying to do is to reconcile a faithful reading of Genesis 1, but find a way to make it gel with what we know about the age of the earth. >> Yeah. And it's only something that came up in what the late 19th maybe early 20th century when this theory was sort of invented as a way of trying to reconcile what we now understand of the universe the age of the earth and you know full marks for trying.
¶33But again you've got to just land in the text itself rather than assume that the text is trying to answer our questions our problems and our dissonances. I find one of the best things people can do when it comes to Genesis 1 is to read widely. You know, read something like Augustine's work on the literal meaning of Genesis 1 or, you know, recently a Jewish scholar Amy Javine has written a beginner's guide to the beginning. Go and read some people who are a little bit different to yourself and that'll expand your mind. Think of your horizons.
¶34Maybe read a commentary or two on Genesis and you'll realize that it's really an amazing a mystifying text that has concerned a lot of minds thinking about what it what it means to say that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And I think if you read widely, explore more, you'll find that some of the binary questions we get into, you know, either a literal six day creation or a gap theory, there's actually a lot of, you know, C, D, E, F, and G. And those questions are worth looking at. >> Yes, absolutely. And I think particularly I I if I can I can imagine that if somebody maybe our questioner were to go to their pastor and say um Mike Bur and Tom Wright had just told me to read Amy Jill Lavine and the pastor might throw up his hands in horror and say well she's not a Christian and she's a liberal andah and [clears throat] and the answer is you just can't live as a mature human being on this constant eitheror where you [clears throat] only will read and listen to people who you know are safe and conservative.
¶35One of the earliest things I learned at seminary that whereas I had thought that there were good safe sound writers, scholars and then the rest were liberals and I didn't need to bother about them that actually there are insights of all sorts coming from all sorts of directions and that some of the people who I um had thought were conservatives are [clears throat] people that who I would now say they were giving either the right answer to the wrong question or the wrong answer to the right question. um that um taking the Bible as authoritative doesn't mean shutting down the questions and the answers. It means saying these are the questions with which every generation has to wrestle. So my friends, let's get on and wrestle with them. And that is faithfulness to scripture rather than assuming that my tradition has got scripture nailed down so that I'll just tell you what my tradition is.
¶36put a few scriptural footnotes in and then that'll be all right, won't it? >> And by the way, our questioner asked about um the the defeat of Satan and about the dinosaurs and so on. These are of course very different issues but there's all sorts of theories which have grown up over the years and have been explored by people like John Milson in in the 17th century um as to uh what was going on before God made the world and was there a primal fall um where Satan was kicked out of heaven before um God then started the present system going and different theologians have had different views on that. But it's very interesting that in order to get into those views, you have to impose other categories onto the texts we've got. And as soon as you're doing that, any suggestion that this is simply exogesis has gone out of the window.
¶37>> Yeah. Well, I think that's all we can dedicate to that question in terms of time. But don't go too far, my friends, because we're going to be back after this break, and we're going to do a deep dive into second Peter 3. Will the earth be melted with fire? More on that after this break.
¶38[music] >> I I recently saw Richard Dawkins sort of embarrassingly, I sort of said, I I was actually at at Even Song last [music] night, and he said, "Me, too." It's not as if I ever looked at a supermarket shelf of religions and said, "I think I'll have that one." I found this continued to unfold and make the best sense I could imagine. >> The person of Jesus compels me. Is life or suffering? Is it all love? Both.
¶39It's both. It's both. And [music] this in this story, they are held in this. I find it beautiful. The way I think of Christianity is that in the person of Jesus, God and us and the universe came together in a unique and unparalleled way.
¶40>> You're supposed to be atheists [laughter] Christians. >> This is This has all happened since you invited me. Sorry. [laughter] >> Sorry. >> Don't worry.
¶41I haven't become an atheist. >> One atheist [laughter] on the panel. >> I've got some bad news. Hello, welcome back. We have the same question effectively from two different people, Tom.
¶42Uh, one from Moray Henderson in Kyle, the UK, and another one from Ben Edgar in Washington DC. And they've both got a question on the same text, which is second Peter 3 10-13. And this is what Mo asks. I do enjoy your podcast and the way you explain esquetology is very helpful. One passage I've never heard you discuss, though I'm sure you have, is 2 Peter 3:12-13.
¶43Rather than continuity with the earth, that and Revelation 21 do seem to indicate a recreation, removal of this earth to make way for a new creation with different properties where God lives with his people. though it's Jerusalem, the bride that comes down out of heaven from God. Those are usually images of God's people, not God himself. How do you interpret the destruction of the earth? That's the image you get in second Peter with a descending Jerusalem bride.
¶44Anyways, to defend Wesley, till in heaven we take our place. Could you refer to taking our place in the new finished creation rather than sitting on the clouds? Perhaps we need to explain heaven in those terms rather than dropping them entirely. So that's the question from Mo and very similar is Ben. Ben writes, "Hi Mike and Tom.
¶45Love the show. Been watching these videos online for about 2 years now. Keep them coming. Tom, as someone who has whose esquetology has been shaped by your work, I have a question about how we should read second Peter 3:10-13, particularly verses 10 and 12. What can we glean from these verses specifically about esquetology?
¶46Because they seem to suggest a destructive [snorts] fiery end to the earth and then a replacement rather than a renewal of all things. Thank you both for your work. Now for our people who are listening to this or watching on our YouTube channel, let me read to you the particular part of second Peter chapter 3 our correspondents are referring to. So in chapter 3 of second Peter we have but the Lord's day will come like a thief and on that day the heavens will pass away with a great rushing sound. The elements will be dissolved in fire and the earth and all the works on it will be disclosed.
¶47Since everything is going to dissolve in this way what sort of people should you be? You should live lives that are holy and godly as you look for God's day to appear and indeed hurry on its way. The day because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the elements will melt with heat. But we are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which justice will be home. That is what he has promised.
¶48Now Tom, this is fortuitous for me because I'm currently engaged in a indepth study of second Peter 3 for a project that I'm involved in. And if I can summarize what I think is some of the concern from Mor and Ben, it's this. You know, you've been teaching across your career that there's going to be a new creation, okay? That there's going to be a renewal, a renovation of the cosmos. But is there any continuity between it?
¶49Is it like God just burns everything to a cinder, melts everything down, and then the new creation is exilio? So is it the case based on second Peter 3 that God just burns it all down? burns everything, heaven, earth, the elements, and then gives us a brand new creation that is distinct and discontinuous from the current creation. Uh Tom, have you got some immediate thoughts? Because my mind is bubbling away with about 12 different commentaries I've been reading on this passage.
¶50>> Well, [clears throat] Mike, I wish you joy of that. I have written my little commentary in the early Christian letters for everyone, but I haven't done the kind of in-depth study that you're now doing. Um, when you get to my age, you have to specialize a bit, and I've specialized elsewhere. Um, ever since I wrote my book, The Resurrection of the Son of God, which I discovered to my horror is 23 years ago, Wow. Then, uh, I have not seen any reason to depart from what I say there.
¶51And the passage, if anyone has got resurrection of the son of God to hand, is on pages 462 and following. And when I get to the same issue in my book, Surprised by Hope, which is probably better known um than Resurrection of the Son of God, I simply refer back to this passage. And there are all sorts of things going on here, but one of which right off the top is to say, beware of the idea that the early Christians were basically flirting with stoicism. In stoicism, there's uh this idea that because um the universe and God are basically the same thing um therefore they are complete and perfect, but we know there is change and decay going on in the world. Then one day what's going to happen is that the whole world is going to be burned up and then like a phoenix rise again and then everything is going to happen just as it did the first time round.
¶52I find that an extremely depressing thought by the way um and maybe that's [clears throat] why in stoicism um one of the things that some stoics used to say was if you don't like the way things are you're free to leave. In other words, suicide is is a stoic option. Um and so that whole idea of this world being burned up and then something maybe the same thing over again or something quite different. Um this is not an early Christian idea. It's a stoic.
¶53It's perfectly possible that some texts crept into the New Testament which did have a stoic flavor. If you look at a book like the wisdom of Solomon, a Jewish book roughly contemporary with the New Testament, there are elements of Platonism in there, elements of stoicism in there. But I don't think that's what's going on here or in Revelation 21 either. I take the point that there is apparently radical discontinuity. Well, of course there is.
¶54If there isn't any death anymore, if there isn't any sin anymore, if there isn't any pain and suffering and crying anymore, which is what Revelation 21 uh indicates. And I think that if I could start there and then move back into second Peter, um what I see happening in Revelation 21 is the the the thing which is old which passes away is the corruptible, decaying and basically sinful world. Um so that what God does away with in moving towards the new creation is to find the way of stripping off all that is in the world at the moment which is corruptible and decaying. We find it impossible almost impossible to think of incorruptible physicality because for us physicality means corruptability. Um it physicality can can be destroyed, burnt up, whatever.
¶55But what you see in the resurrection of Jesus, which is after all the only example that we've got at the moment of the new creation embodied is something which um in g Jesus' body as Paul says Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death has no more dominion over him. Jesus has gone through death and out the other side into a new mode of being from which suffering, death, evil have all been removed. Now, I think that's what's going on in Revelation 21 and I think it's what's going on in second Peter as well. Um, let let me let me just I won't read it out word for word, but let me summarize what's what I'm saying in resurrection of the son of God at the relevant place.
¶56Um because the translation which says that the world will be burned up depends on one particular Greek word which is in some manuscripts but by no means all. Most of the best manuscripts so far as we can tell have the Greek word hureseti rather than kataketi which doesn't mean burned up. It means disclosed or found out. It's as though somewhere in this mess and muddle of the world as we know it with all its suffering and pain, there is the truth of God's real creation, God's beautiful intended world, which is somehow buried underneath all the rubble. And what's going to happen is God is going to clear away all the rubble and then his true world will be found.
¶57Um and uh there there are some Jewish texts and elsewhere in the New Testament, including Paul and the Gospels, where this same idea um comes out. The idea um of the writer stressing continuity within discontinuity. Yeah. >> That continuity in which the new world and the new people who inhabit it emerge from this process, tried and tested and purified. Now, if that's so, then what we're looking at is not a dualistic view of creation going to be abolished and God doing something totally different, but rather that uh a view which says no, creation was and is good in itself and is to be rescued from all that is now corrupting and decaying within it.
¶58And so the only way to the fulfillment of the creator's longing for justice and goodness is to deal with that f to by fire um the all that is currently corrupting it. So um I I I I have come back to that again and again and I think it's echoed fleetingly in that passage in 1 Corinthians 3 about that's dealing with Christian teachers rather than Christians or the world in general. But it's um the idea of being saved as through fire. Everything which is decaying and corruptible and wicked in us needs to be burned away. Not so that we can be destroyed and then something totally different will be created, but that the real you, the real me, will be able to emerge with a kind of a sigh of relief from all that is at present clogging the wheels and dragging us down.
¶59So that's how I've come to read second Peter 3. Um I know there are many other views, but that's that's the one which I have taken and continue continue to take. >> Well, I'm with you on this text, Tom. I don't think second Peter uh has drunk deeply into the well of stoicism. I I do think he may be engaging the worldview, the language, the conceptuality behind it by accenting the role of fire, but the idea that there's going to be judgment by fire was not invented by Senica or the stoer.
¶60You find that across the Old Testament. And if you read the old King James in verse 10 of chapter 3, it will say the earth and all of its works will be burned up. But as you point out, there are some other manuscripts that says everything will be disclosed or shown. And I think the idea here is there will be a fiery cataclysm that somehow is expressed in the heavens in the elements, the stokeia, you know, whatever they whatever that means in this context. the angels or the various material elements that make off the universe.
¶61But it doesn't say that the earth will be burned up and burned to a cinder rather uh the earth will experience its own refinement or its own kind of ordeal. But the idea is to sort of reveal what is there so it can be uh laid out for judgment. And what you get at the end of this passage in verse 13 is the language of Isaiah 66 about a new heavens and a new earth, a place fit for the justice of God to be revealed. So as you said there is kind of continuity within the discontinuity but I don't think the whole universe is burnt to a cinder burnt to a crisp put into ashes and then just brushed aside and we get creation 2.0 Oxnilio, as you say, Tom, the fire of judgment is involved, but the earth is going to be revealed for judgment, laid bare. I think of that moments when when everyone's hearts and minds are being laid bare and subject to the justice and judgment of God.
¶62I think it's that kind of a thing that's happening. But you know it it's being described here in language that people who are immersed in stoicism or know about it might be able to relate to. But the way it finishes is with the language of Isaiah, you know, the language of new creation, the language of covenant justice filling the whole earth. >> Yeah. Yeah.
¶63That's right. And I think I think the the idea of God making a world and then God uh completing that work by rooting out everything that is evil and wicked in it. That that is so important in actually in the whole of the New Testament. I I think it's worth adding for people who may not be aware of this that um there are many many different manuscripts of the New Testament which we have available to us um literally hundreds from very early on. Um that's not a cause for alarm.
¶64It's a cause for celebration because many of the texts from the ancient world all that we've got is one medieval manuscript or possibly two and that's your lot. Whereas we've got bits and pieces of the New Testament from the second, third, fourth, fifth century, including full texts from the third and fourth and fifth century. Um, but when you put those texts together, often the scribes who were transcribing them must have had difficulty as well because they have changed words which they clearly didn't understand what the meaning could have been. So that I I've got here in front of me the the standard uh uh Greek text of the New Testament that that scholars use the the Nestle Allan text and it lists the variations in the different manuscripts at that point in in that particular word the earth and all that is in it and the works that are in it and what's going to happen to it. And uh there's 1 2 3 4 5 half a dozen different Greek words.
¶65Some of them in different manuscripts, some of them suggested by puzzled commentators. And th this I think is one of the most um puzzling and controverted textual um moments in the whole New Testament. Um and so we shouldn't be surprised then that we have to wrestle with it as well because obviously people in the second and third and fourth century were wrestling with it too and said saying what what actually does this mean and how does it fit and how does it work? So so we shouldn't be alarmed about this. It's it's a normal phenomenon of trying to recover an ancient text.
¶66But in the middle of it, easily the best word um from the manuscripts is the word which means will be discovered. The reality of God's real true creation will be discovered. I've often said when expounding 2 Corinthians 4 and5 that uh there God looks at you. God looks at the real you and he says one day the real you is going to emerge at the moment you're suffering and in trouble and in difficulty but uh one day with the resurrection then it won't be somebody new. It will be the real you and God will enable you to be you as he's always intended and wanted and is working on right now.
¶67>> Yeah. Well, Tom, thinking of things to be disclosed in the future in our next episode, next week on Ask ENT Wright Anything, we're going to cover birth and new birth. Should you feel guilty for not going into full-time vocational ministry? And why does the New Testament blame Adam but not Eve for the original sin? Uh, but if our viewers, our friends cannot wait until then to get a little bit more Tom Wright in their life, well then they can become subscribers to the podcast and enjoy an extra episode every week where we go through Tom's book, God's Homecoming.
¶68We look at things like Eternal Generation of the Sun, you know, violence in the Old Testament. And Tom, if we have some people who want to submit to us a question for our regular program, where should they go, Tom? >> Oh, go to the website askantight.com. Um, and all will be revealed disclosed at that point. >> Indeed.
¶69And if you want to see these things disclosed visually, remember we also have our own YouTube channel where you can watch whole episodes or even some of our, you know, single questions posted just for one good sharp answer that you can watch in 5 to 10 minutes and maybe even share with a friend. So don't forget to check out our YouTube channel as well. Until next time, it's goodbye from me, Mike Bird, >> and goodbye from me, Tom Wright. >> And we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Ask ENT Wright Anything. Until then, God bless you and take care.
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