Session 3: The Basic Position
Matthew 8:5-13
Preparation Resources
1) NT Wright Essay: Understanding Racism
1) Tim Keller sermon: Healing the Sick
Discussion Topics
1) NT Wright Essay: Understanding Racism
1) Tim Keller sermon: Healing the Sick
Discussion Topics
- NT Wright discusses the notion that we as a society have learned the evils of racism (from Nazism, slavery, apartheid) and rejected it. To what extent do you think that is true today?
- NT Wright calls this view “an over-realized secular eschatology”. What do you understand him to mean by that?
- Summarize NT Wright’s description of the social groupings in the middle east of Jesus’ time. What were the three major divisions? How does that compare to today?
- How do “modern” social Darwinian ideas dangerously influence views of racial differences?
- How did the Jews of Jesus’ day see the primary divisions in the world?
- In the passage from Matthew, Jesus says that “many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob”. How would this been a very radical statement to his Jewish hearers?
- How did Christianity re-define their community based on this and other similar sayings of Jesus (and Paul)?
- Does the Christian church today live up to this re-defined vision of who is (and is not) in our community?