Overstated misunderstood

"Despite centuries of intense and heavy industry expended on the study of all sorts of features of the gospels," Wright writes, "we have often managed to miss the main thing that they, all four of them, are most eager to tell us. What we need is not just a bit of fine-tuning, an adjustment here and there. We need a fundamental rethink about what the gospels are trying to tell us."

The inside flap of the book sets my mind on skeptic mode immediately. I don't like overstaters (partly because I am one), and certainly not those who would suggest that for 2,000 years the church has missed the main point of its main text.

I am, however, walking away from this book with two things that I am grateful to have considered and learned. First, it is indeed interesting to consider the way the Gospels have been relayed in the context of the church. Wright points out convincingly that our very definition and understanding of "gospel" comes more from the Apostle Paul than it does the four books by that name. Unless we take the Gospels to be mere historical authentication that Christ has opened heavens doors, one must admit that the Gospels don't focus precisely in the same place that the epistles of Paul and others do. Additionally, the question is raised as to how the creeds go from chapter one to the final chapters of each Gospel: "...conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontious Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried." What about the miracles, the teaching, the discipline? What about the message of the KINGDOM, Wright asks.

Second, even if one didn't make the time for the entire book, I found the final chapter very helpful and would recommend it. There, Wright offers not a critique of the creeds themselves, but a vision of what ought to be going through the orthodox believers mind as (s)he recites. They have guided the church through heresy, and they continue to stand as flags around which the universal church can be unified. How important it is that we not lose sight of what they mean.

It has been said that the best teacher makes Scripture more clear not less. Wright makes it more clear.