The death of Judas, Biblical Inerrancy and how to avoid being too "heavenly minded"?

Summary

Ask NT Wright Anything – Episode Summary Podcast: Ask NT Wright Anything
Host: Mike Bird
Guest: Tom Wright (NT Wright)
Episode: The death of Judas, Biblical Inerrancy and how to avoid being too "heavenly minded"?
Date: March 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features NT Wright (Tom) and co-host Mike Bird addressing listener questions on three major topics: the seemingly contradictory accounts of Judas’s death in the New Testament, the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, and how Christians can maintain a "heavenly perspective" without neglecting earthly responsibility. The episode demonstrates how biblical interpretation, doctrine, and Christian living intersect, offering both academic insight and pastoral guidance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reconciling the Death of Judas (Matthew 27:5 vs. Acts 1:18)

   • [01:02] Mike presents the question: How do you reconcile the accounts of Judas’s death in Matthew and Acts?

     • Matthew 27:5: Judas throws down the money in the temple and hangs himself.
     • Acts 1:18: Judas uses his ill-gotten gains to buy a field, falls headlong, and is disemboweled.

   • [02:49] Tom responds:

     • This question has been discussed for centuries, with some tracing it back to St. Augustine.
     • Possible harmonization: If Judas hanged himself, decomposition could cause the body to disintegrate when cut down, matching Acts’ description.
     • Ancient texts often include differing details, as with the historical record about Gallio in Acts 18. New findings can sometimes resolve or reframe apparent contradictions.
     • Underlying issue: modern expectations about textual precision are foreign to ancient writing, where selection and arrangement always play a role.
     • "If our belief in the New Testament was dependent on our being able to have from the texts like a kind of video recording…then we certainly don't have that. But that's not how ancient writing works." (B/Tom, 06:36)

   • [07:00] Mike adds:

     • The evangelists could be using different sources or traditions.
     • The texts are intended as theological commentary, not coroner’s reports.
     • "They're giving us a broad brushstroke on what happened… it's really a passing glance at something on the way of telling the story of Jesus and the early church." (A/Mike, 07:27)

   • [08:02] Tom's further reflection:

     • More important than the grisly details is Matthew's focus on Judas’s remorse and the temple priesthood’s failure to offer forgiveness—highlighting the temple’s impending judgment.
     • "They have forfeited any right to be regarded as genuine priests… That is far more important than trying to square the circle of two different accounts." (B/Tom, 08:50)

2. The Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy

   • [09:24] Mike presents Owen's question about struggling with the idea of inerrancy and being misunderstood by others in Christian circles.

   • [10:48] Tom’s Response:

     • The inerrancy debate is deeply entangled with American and European cultural issues and often becomes a litmus test in church politics.
     • Historically, inerrancy was a Protestant pushback against Roman Catholic authority (the “paper Pope”).
     • "There are many issues over the last 2, 300 years, over the whole course of church history, where people have wandered away from the truth and have gone off in their own direction. And one of the signs of that… has sometimes been when people say, ‘Oh, well, the Bible says X, but I believe Y.’" (B/Tom, 11:12)
     • However, treating the Bible as a rulebook to avoid thinking or prayerful wrestling with Scripture is a misstep:
       • "Part of the glory of the Bible is that it’s the kind of book that every generation does need to think through. The Bible is an incentive to grow up in understanding, in knowledge, in faith, as we wrestle with it." (B/Tom, 13:39)
     • Truth in the Bible is multidimensional—not just propositional or factual, but including narrative, poetry, and spiritual insight.
     • “I really believe we have the Bible God intended us to have.” (B/Tom, 15:59)
     • Once the richness of Scripture is grasped, the need for a doctrine of inerrancy tends to fall away as prescriptive or unnecessary.

   • [19:36] Mike builds on this:

     • Many equate inerrancy with the inerrancy of their own interpretation and traditions, using it as a power play in church politics.
     • "Using inerrancy becomes a card you can play to keep your own tribe as hegemonic within certain networks or denominations." (A/Mike, 20:33)

   • [20:49] Tom agrees:

     • It's not just an American problem; British circles do the same—confusing biblical authority with the authority of tradition.
     • Calls for recognizing even “Bible-believing” evangelical circles have their own traditions that can obscure deeper engagement with the biblical story itself.

   • [22:18] Book Recommendations:

     • Tom: Scripture and the Authority of God (formerly The Last Word; 2nd edition recommended) – Focuses on the narrative-based authority of Scripture and cautions against simplistic categories like "inerrancy" or "infallibility".
       • "Jesus doesn't say... all authority in heaven and earth is given to the books you chaps are going to go off and write. Jesus says, 'all authority in heaven and earth is given to me.'" (B/Tom, 23:18)
     • Mike: Seven Things about the Bible I Wish All Christians Knew.

3. Being "Heavenly Minded" Without Neglecting Earth

   • [26:59] Question from Susan Jeffries: How can we move away from a Platonic “heaven-good, earth-bad” mindset when reading passages like Colossians 3:1-2? How do we celebrate a heavenly perspective while remaining engaged on earth?

     • Quoted verses: "…think about the things that are above, not the things that belong to the earth." (Col 3:2)

   • [29:12] Tom’s Response:

     • The New Testament insists our understanding of God and heaven is centered in Jesus—the one who is fully God and fully “earthly.”
     • Platonic escapism is incompatible with the biblical view. The Bible speaks of the goodness of creation (Genesis 1), and humanity as the intersection of heaven and earth.
     • “Whatever Paul means in Colossians 3:1,2, it can't mean that anything in the present creation is at best second rate and at worst thoroughly bad.” (B/Tom, 30:14)
     • Paul’s reference to “the earth” in Colossians 3 is shorthand for behaviors in rebellion against God (sexual immorality, greed, etc.), not the material world itself.
     • The biblical story is about heaven and earth being united, climaxing in Revelation 21—not an escape from earth but God coming to dwell here.
       • "It's not about saved souls leaving earth and going to heaven, it's the other way about. …The dwelling of God is now with humans." (B/Tom, 34:07)
     • Our calling: anticipate and model the "heaven-and-earth" reality here and now, avoiding both otherworldly withdrawal and earthly compromise.

   • [36:08] Mike’s military analogy:

     • "We are the vanguard of the new heaven. I never pass up an attempt to militarize our conversations, Tom." (A/Mike, 36:08)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "All writing is about selection and arrangement… If our belief in the New Testament was dependent on our being able to have from the texts like a kind of video recording… then we certainly don’t have that." – Tom Wright, [06:34]
• "They have forfeited any right to be regarded as genuine priests and the temple that they serve is under God's judgment. I think that is far more important than trying to square the circle of two different accounts of the same event." – Tom Wright, [08:50]
• "Part of the glory of the Bible is that it's the kind of book that every generation does need to think through. The Bible is an incentive to grow up in understanding, in knowledge, in faith, as we wrestle with it." – Tom Wright, [13:39]
• "Using inerrancy becomes a card you can play to keep your own tribe as hegemonic within certain networks or denominations." – Mike Bird, [20:33]
• "It's not about saved souls leaving earth and going to heaven, it's the other way about. ...The dwelling of God is now with humans." – Tom Wright, [34:07]
• "We are the vanguard of the new heaven... I never pass up an attempt to militarize our conversations, Tom." – Mike Bird, [36:08]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:02] – Introduce debate on Judas’s death
• [02:49] – Tom’s historical and textual analysis of Judas’s death
• [08:02] – The theological significance of Judas’s remorse and the priesthood’s failure
• [09:24] – Owen’s question on biblical inerrancy
• [10:48] – Tom discusses the cultural and doctrinal roots (and pitfalls) of inerrancy
• [15:59] – “We have the Bible God intended us to have.”
• [19:36] – Mike on the misuse of inerrancy as a power tool
• [20:49] – Tom: It's not just America—tradition vs. scripture
• [22:18] – Book recommendations on Scripture
• [26:59] – Susan’s question about being too “heavenly minded”
• [29:12] – Tom: Avoiding Platonic dualism and affirming new creation
• [34:07] – Emphasis on the union of heaven and earth (Revelation 21)
• [36:08] – Mike: "We are the vanguard of the new heaven."

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Summary Conclusion

This episode navigates the technical, pastoral, and theological layers of some classic Christian conundrums: the “contradictory” details in Gospel narratives, the complex legacy of biblical inerrancy, and how to have a heavenly mindset that energizes rather than abstracts faith. Tom Wright and Mike Bird offer listeners a compelling model for faithful, thoughtful engagement—a mix of ancient wisdom, scholarly humility, and a vision for vibrant Christian living rooted in God's redemptive purposes for both heaven and earth.

Transcript

[A]

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of Ask NT Write Anything, the program where we try to 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 here with my good friend and colleague Tom Wright from

[B]

Wycliffe hall in Oxford.

[A]

Yeah, Tom, the good thing about this show is we literally cannot do it without you because there's no, there's no, you know, ask nt right anything. If there's no nt right, you know, we can't simply go ask some guy called Bob I met on the train anything. I mean, that, that, that's a program that's not going to sell. So I, I think you've got the same ring.

[B]

Well, as, as C.S. lewis said when he did his inaugural lecture in Cambridge, you better make the most of me while I'm still here, because I, I'm getting on. There will be a day when you won't be able to ask nt right anything at all. But. So we make the most of it while we're here.

[A]

Yes. Well, since the bridegroom is still here, we can still rejoice, Tom. We can still rejoice for the moment. And we should do, because we've got some great questions, good questions about the death of Judas, you know, the inerrancy of the Bible. What does that mean? And is it, is it possible to be too heavenly minded that we're of no earthly good? So our first question this week is from Matt Uberoy White from Bristol, England, and he's got a question about the death of Judas. This is what he asked. This is from Matt. He says, hey, Tom, my question is about Judas and his death. How would you reconcile the two differing narratives about Judas's death in Matthew 27:5 and Acts 1:18? And then he adds, really love the podcast and thank you for everything you and Mike do. Thanks matter. Well, thank you there for the love. And I should say we have had a few questions about Judas in the past, including one from Richard Powell about whether Judas can be redeemed. So, Tom, let me first of all read out the two passages in questions and I'll use the New Testament for everyone translation. In Matthew 27:5 it says, and he threw down the money in the temple. That's Judas left and went and hanged himself. And then in Acts 118, it says, Judas, you see, had brought a field with the money his wickedness had bought him, where he fell headlong and burst open with all his innards gushing out. So I think the Question from Matt here, Tom, is, did Judas die by hanging or did he somehow get disemboweled? I mean, how do these two things work together?

[B]

Yeah, it's a good question. And of course, every generation has faced this question. Excuse me, anyone? Sorry, let me just start that again. It's a good question. Every generation of Bible readers has faced this same question. And so the discussion of it goes back at least to St. Augustine and earlier. And many people have tried different ways of reconciling the two accounts. I mean, it gets very grisly to discuss it and very distasteful, of course. But if somebody is discovered to have been hanged, depending on how long they've been suspended in midair from a tree branch or whatever, then the body may have started to rot. And so then when they're cut down, then the body may just disintegrate. And so you may then find that there's a sequence from the Matthew 27 went and hanged himself to the Acts 1 where his innards all gushed out. I simply don't know any beyond that. No doubt there are other ways medically of putting them together. Or you could say, which many have, of course, that the early church weren't quite sure exactly how Judas had died. But something like the rather vague language of Acts 1 may just mean it was a terrible thing. And the. The place where it happened was obviously the field of blood, because that was. And so then the two accounts are standing there side by side. So, I mean, underneath that there is a question which is cognate with the one we're going to be dealing with next, I think, which is about the inerrancy of Scripture. And I think people have often pulled up these things and said, oh, here's a contradiction in Scripture. And I want to say, look, as an ancient historian, when you come to all sorts of documents, not that we have that many docum documents about the ancient world, you frequently have passages where this doesn't seem quite to fit with that, and this doesn't seem quite to fit with the other. And then just when historians are saying so, they're contradicting each other, then somebody comes along and says, we just dug up this scroll or this artifact, this archaeological bits and pieces. And it turns out that in fact this was as it was. I mean, a classic case would be when Gallio was proconsul of achaea in Acts 18. And people for generations used to say, well, we know that Gallio was never proconsulate Achaea. So obviously Luke's made This bit up, and then suddenly they find an inscription which has Gallio not only proconsul of Achaea, but with dates attached, so that instead of it being a major problem, it becomes the linchpin of New Testament chronology and so on. So when faced with apparent contradictions like this, I want to say, well, look and see if there might be a way of telling the story which would include both, and that would be the hanging for a few days and then the body rotting and et cetera, et cetera, or something like that. And then, even if not, then it's quite possible that there was a different sequence of thought and that if we had some other writing from the time, we might have a perspective which would reconcile them both. So I have never managed to get too worked up about these places where A and B seem not to square with one another. There are several like this in the New Testament. And, you know, if the New Testament. If our belief in the New Testament was dependent on our being able to have from the texts like a kind of video recording of what happened on every possible occasion, then if that's what you mean by inspiration, then we certainly don't have that. But that's not how ancient writing works. It's not actually how any. Any writing work, because all writing is about selection and arrangement. So that. That's, I think, as far as we can take it. Mike, you may have studied this more recently than me. Do you have other insights, other ways of putting that, squaring that circle?

[A]

Yeah, look, you know, maybe the evangelists are just relying on different sources and different accounts of what happened to Judas. The other thing you've got to say is, you know, when rigoria mortis sets in, dead bodies can do strange things. They can swell up, they can explode sometimes, you know, when the. The effects of mortification set in any number of things, it comes down to the person's DNA diet and the way they died. So I don't think they're mutually exclusive. But again, we're not getting a coroner's report on the death of Judas. They're giving us a broad brushstroke on what happened, interested into how this fulfills scripture, but it's really a passing glance at something on the way of telling the story of Jesus and the early church. So I don't tend to be too fussed about it. But the focus on details does give some people a little bit of anxiety. And I think, Tom, this is a good segue into our second question on the.

[B]

Can I just. Can I just pause for a Minute. Because there was one other thing to say about the Matthew passage that I think when people have focused on this and said, oh dear, Matthew's account of Judas's death doesn't square with acts they've missed. What is, I think, a far more important point in Matthew's narrative where Judas, filled with remorse at what he's done, goes to the chief priests and says, I have sinned. And they say it's not our business. You deal with it yourself. And at that point this fits with the whole narrative in which the present temple and priesthood are under God's judgment. What are the priests, therefore, in the temple, for goodness sake, to deal with the people's sin so that when people come and say I've sinned, the priests ought to know what to do to give them assurance of God's forgiveness. And instead this priesthood stands self condemned because they just say, see if we care. Deal with it yourself. In other words, they have forfeited any right to be regarded as genuine priests and the temple that they serve is under God's judgment. I think that is far more important than trying to square the circle of two different accounts of the same event.

[A]

Yeah, the danger of some of our questions. We missed the forest for the trees.

[B]

That's. That is often a danger. Yeah. So anyway, but the segue into the next thing. Indeed.

[A]

Yeah. Well, to, to zoom out from the specifics into the, the big picture, we have a question from Owen Thompson of College Station usa and it's, it's about inerrancy. And, and Owen asked this. He says, hello. I am quite stumped when it comes to the idea of the inerrancy of the Bible. I struggle with this because it never seems to quite satisfy of what the Bible actually is a story. This is often because when someone is talking about the doctrine of inerrancy, what they actually might mean is that everything literally happened just the way the Bible said that. I hold a high view of Scripture, but I do not hold convictions of a Christian fundamentalist because they seem less than helpful. Is the doctrine of inerrancy just another way for Christians to easily categorize or box in something so we can better understand it or else use words to tame it? Also, how can I better share these thoughts with Christians around me? I often feel stuck and backed into a corner because if I share that I have concerns with this doctrine, people often assume that I don't think the Bible is true. Thank you for all that you do. There we go. Tom, what do you have to say to Owen Are his concerns and questions legitimate? Should he be worried that he's inadvertently undermining the truthfulness of the Bible?

[B]

Yeah, it's a good and natural question and people are asking it again and again. And sadly, this gets bundled up in American culture right now with all sorts of issues about politics, about gun control, about goodness knows what. It goes with a whole mindset. I had a sad email just overnight last night from a good Christian friend in America whose own denomination that she attends and has done for most of her life, has taken a big lurch in what you might loosely call a theologically rightwards direction. This has happened in various churches in America, but suddenly everything has become very hard and brittle and people are saying, unless you sign on the dotted line for this and this and this and this, then we're not going to listen to you, we're not going to treat you with any respect, et cetera. And this is very ugly. And of. There are many issues over the last 2, 300 years, over the whole course of church history, where people have wandered away from the truth and have gone off in their own direction. And one of the signs of that has sometimes been when people say, oh, well, the Bible says X, but I believe Y. Or the Bible says, you should do this, but I think that's a bit silly. Or how do we know that the Bible is telling us what God really said in the first place? Anyway, I have met those sorts of arguments throughout my life, and I know again and again where they are leading, that the end result is we don't really know very much about this. The Bible is just a few people's funny ideas, and what did they know anyway, because they didn't have modern science and so on. One of the things to do is to locate these discussions in the larger world of European and American culture where they belong. Because the doctrine of inerrancy is a way of shoring up the view that the Bible is God's word to us over against whether it may be miscellaneous human philosophical ideas, or particularly going back to the time of the Reformation, whether it's a way of saying the Bible tells us the truth rather than the Church telling us the truth. Exactly. It's a Protestant view. And so with Martin Luther and so on, we say the Bible is God's word. So I'm not going to listen to the Pope. And that's a very strong impulse still to this day in many forms of Protestantism, both Reformed and Lutheran and Methodist and so on a sort of sense that if you don't have the Bible firmly in the middle of the picture, then you're going to allow the Pope back in in some way. Now, I'm an Anglican, I don't believe that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ. I don't believe that everything he says extra cathedral is automatically right. But what you're seeing then is actually, and people said this to Luther and his successors, the danger of turning the Bible into a paper Pope, into an infallible source that you can go to and just look up the answers without having to think. And it's what some people have found, not all. And there are many Roman Catholic theolog who would say, no, that's not how we do it. But there are many for whom the answer to any question is somebody or other of something or other said something about this, there's a volume on the shelf, go and pull it off. And then there's the answer. In other words, you don't need to think it through. Whereas it seems to me part of the glory of the Bible is that the Bible is the kind of book that every generation does need to think through. The Bible is an incentive to grow up in understanding, in knowledge, in faith, as we wrestle with it. Not in other words, it's not about shutting down questions as though to say the Bible has spoken. So sit down, shut up and get your books out. You know, like a bad old fashioned school teacher. Rather, the Bible says this and this and this. Therefore, let us pray, let us wrestle with it, let's discuss it among ourselves, let's actually look at different versions, different translations, let's see what's really going on. And as we do that, fresh in sight of all sorts may burst upon us, you see. And then, so there's a basically Protestant narrative going on. You've got to have the Bible, because otherwise. And it's also a kind of a rationalist idea that in 18th century rationalism you have this sort of sense, there must be something which is objectively true so that we know where we're standing, we know what we can build on. And I've even heard some theologians say, of course, God obviously wants us to know the truth, because why wouldn't he? Therefore he's given us the Bible. Since we know that God wants us to know the truth and the Bible is what he's given us, the Bible must be true truth. And that's it. And I want to say, hang on, what do we mean by the word truth? And that's not just a cheap cop out. It's not a way of wriggling out of the question. The word truth is a very big and interesting idea to do with how we know things and what sort of different things we know and how the truth that I'm sitting here holding a mug of tea is different from the truth that says that Mozart's Jupiter Symphony is one of the most wonderful pieces of art ever created by a human being. It's a different sort of truth entirely. And the idea that the Bible gives you simply the kind of mug of tea truth that there it is, you can go and look it up and it says this on page such and such. Therefore that's what happens. That's a trivialization of the Bible. The way I've put it again and again in teaching students is I really believe we have the Bible God intended us to have. Now, of course, that leaves some questions unanswered. What about the books that didn't make it into the canon? Or what about books like the Wisdom of Solomon, which is a wonderful book in all sorts of ways, but is not in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. And so what we've got is a Greek text of it. And some of it sounds very like bits of St. Paul and some of it sounds very like the sort of things that some early Christians said. And then it sort of diverges a bit. And that's because the Bible doesn't come sort of shrink wrapped as though here it is. This stands apart from everything else. The Bible is of its time. Its authors were people of their time who wrote in the idioms of their time. In order to understand them, we have to look at other literature and history of the time. I have here various Greek dictionaries to help me understand what word by word in the New Testament means. And the way that those dictionaries work is that they compare with other ancient writers who use the same words. And then that doesn't mean that people like Josephus or Philo are inspired in the sense that the Bible is inspired. But it just means that in order to understand what the inspired text does say we need all the historical resources we can get. And when we bring them to bear, then I find that questions like inerrancy kind of fall away as unnecessary. That once you actually expound what the Bible is teaching in all its richness, it is so powerful and so all inclusive and so embracing of all sorts of issues that people stop asking the question. But is it inerrant? Because I think that's a way. Well, it's partly a way, as I said, of warding off the Old fashioned challenge of an old fashioned Roman Catholicism. It's also a way of warding off what people see as liberalism, the liberal downgrading, which through the 19th and into the 20th century was a lot of people saying, as in the old musical, the things that you're liable to read in the Bible, they ain't necessarily so. Which was then a way of people sliding away from Christian commitment into, well, yeah, Paul said this, but I really don't think he was up to much. And so I'm going to go off in this direction. And that way danger lies. So it's a rich mixture of prayer, of fellowship, of the work of the Holy Spirit with this text alive and challenging in our midst. And rather than trying to have a rational theory about what it is, it's much more important to get stuck into finding out what it's actually saying. And what it's actually saying is often far richer and more multidimensional than all the inerrant theories that I've ever seen have even realized.

[A]

I think that's a good way to put it, Tom, because we're often expecting the Bible to perform in a certain way, to be a fortress against certain problems that were not necessarily what it was intended for. I mean, I, I can understand some people want to know how is the Bible true or in what sense is it not untrue? Should we expect the Bible to be true scientifically? Should we expect, you know, is the Bible something you choose to treat someone with, you know, schizophrenia or some other mental health decision? So I think people want to know what are the limits or boundaries of its truthiness, if that's a word. And I think the other issue here is, and what this thing I've, I've seen in America a lot when people preach the inerrancy of the text, what they often mean is the inherent, the inerrancy of their interpretation. So they're not simply talking about the text is true, but the text and their own culture for the way it should be understood. And so using inerrancy becomes a card you can play to keep your own tribe as hegemonic within certain networks or denominations. Does any of that proof you, Tom?

[B]

Oh, yeah, very much so. And sadly, it's not just America, though I have seen it there too. But certainly I know various British circles where the church has defined itself in a particular way and it calls itself biblical. And as I've argued in my forthcoming book, God's Homecoming, very often what that means is what's actually the authority is our Tradition to which we can supply lots of biblical footnotes as though the Bible was written to address the problems that we in the 16th or 18th or 20th century have been aware of. And again and again when we get back to the Bible, it's got far more to say than all our traditions. And so I'm absolutely on board with saying the Bible over against church traditions. But I want to say, and that includes would be Bible believing or evangelical or fundamentalist traditions, of which there are many. The problem then is that when people have a tradition, they're living so much in it, they don't recognize that it is a tradition and that there might be alternatives.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, I'd probably add to that not just traditions, but a cabal of gangster pastors. I don't know, maybe that's a phrase that should catch on more. Well, anyway, Tom, on that note, we're going to take a break, but before we do, I should say you've got a book on the doctrine of scripture that's called the Last Word. Is that the American or British name?

[B]

Actually the phrase the last word was the title of the first American edition. The English edition was called Scripture and the Authority of God, which is what the book is actually about. The American publisher for some reason called it the Last Word, which I said was silly because actually Jesus is God's last word according to New Testament. And anyone who thought that a book called the last word by N.T. wright was going to be my last book was sorely mistaken. So anyway, I went on grumbling to the American publisher and eventually they said, okay, okay, we'll do a second edition. We'll call it Scripture and the Authority of God. But you need to write two extra chapters to show how what you're saying works out in practice. So the book to look for is Scripture and the Authority of God in the second edition. Because that's the way I was seeing it, that let's not talk about infallibility or inerrancy. These are ways of saying we don't actually need to think about it. We just say the Bible says and that settles it. Whereas when we talk about authority, we're talking about God. Jesus doesn't say in Matthew 28, all authority in heaven and earth is given to the books. You chaps are going to go off and write, Jesus says, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. So if we talk about authority of Scripture as I want to do, that must be a shorthand for a larger issue which is God's authority vested in Jesus somehow exercised through this book. And when we then say, how does God's authority in Christ work out in and through this book? All sorts of other questions come to light, like how can a story be authoritative? You know, it's one thing to pin up a list of rules on the faculty notice board or whatever you must do, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and make sure they're all right. It's quite another for somebody to come into the room and say, once upon a time, da da da da, and tell a story and leave people to figure out what they're to do with that story. The Bible is much more like the latter than the former, though of course it does have lists as well. So I've spelt all that out in Scripture and the authority of God and actually to mention it yet one more time, my forthcoming book, God's Homecoming, is very much about taking Scripture seriously rather than taking the traditions of the church seriously.

[A]

Yeah, I want to add my own piece to that. I've written a book called seven Things about the Bible I Wish All Christians Knew. But that is the last book promo we're doing for this episode, I promise. We're going to take a break and when we come back, we're going to discuss whether it's possible to have a heavenly perspective without being useless on earth. So back in a moment. What if Engaging scripture could be both deeply informed and beautifully accessible? With the Filament Bible app, your print Bible becomes a rich, interactive study experience. Simply scan the page number and Filament opens thousands of expertly crafted notes, devotional reflections, interactive maps and videos, plus audio scripture to help you explore the text with greater insight and context. It's a seamless way to go deeper into God's Word wherever you are. Learn [e-mail] Monster Energy Everybody knows White Monster Zero Ultra.

[C]

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[D]

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[A]

And welcome back. And we have a question from Susan Jeffries of Ringwood, Oklahoma.

[B]

Ringwood?

[A]

That's amazing. I live in Ringwood in Melbourne. This is fantastic. Unless the Australian Taxation Office is listening, in which case I've been living in the tax free haven of Monaco for the last three years. But anyway, Susan's got a question about having a heavenly perspective and she starts off this way. She says before my question, I must offer my gratitude for your insight and work. Part of my daily reading this week has been in Colossians, which never fails to awaken me to the magnitude and supremacy of Jesus. I agree, Susan. I love Colossians. This time reading it's been additionally informed by your disruptive insights into God's complete redemptive work. So thanks for shaking me up. And her question is this. How can we shift our thinking today and our words to replace the Platonic mindset that we have been trained to go to? When we read, for example, Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 to 2 more fully, how can we speak better than using earth as something that's bad and heaven as something good? Thank you. Now, Tom, let me just read out from Colossians chapter three, verses one to two. And this is where Paul writes, so if you were raised to life with the Messiah, search for the things that are above, where the Messiah is seated at God's right hand, think about the things that are above, not the things that belong to the earth. Now, Tom, is there the danger if you read that verse out of context, that we could end up as Susan seems to be aware of, that heaven good, earth bad, that let's set our mind on heaven. Let's stop thinking about earthly labors and all that kind of business. Let's just contemplate the beauties, the majesty and the glory of heaven. Tom, what is your response to Susan's question?

[B]

It's a great question because it comes out of exactly the kind of Christian context that I knew very well when I was growing up and that I still meet quite frequently. And there are many people and I know some of them and I respect them in all sorts of ways, their ministries, et cetera, who will say that any focus on anything earthly, whether it's politics or society or whatever, is a distraction from contemplating the glory of God and the mystery of the Trinity and the glories of the life to come, and so on. Now, I'm all in favor of people contemplating the glory of God and the majesty of, of God and so on. But I do want to say, just simply starting from that point, the New Testament is very clear that when we're trying to contemplate the majesty and mystery of God, our focus ought to come very quickly onto Jesus. Paul says that he is the image of the invisible God. And John chapter one says, no one has ever seen God, but the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. And Jesus himself says, the one who has seen me has seen the Father. And so I think there is a danger right off the start that if we think of contemplating God, the New Testament says, the way you really know who God is is by looking hard at Jesus. Those four gospels which seem very, and are very down to earth about this friendly, scary, exciting, dramatic, worrying person who is going around teasing people, challenging them, telling funny stories, healing old ladies and small children. Goodness knows what, that's what it looks like when God comes to town. Are we ready for that God and a God who's very much here with us. The Word became flesh, that is, he became made of earth, as we all are. So whatever Paul means in Colossians 3:1,2, it can't mean that anything in the present creation is at best second rate and at worst thoroughly bad. That is a slide, as the questioner says, towards Platonism. Now, I studied Plato's Republic when I was at school and then when I was at college. And that whole Platonic tradition is very much about escaping from all the rough and tumble and the messiness of this worldly life and contemplating the forms, the great realities which transcend the present world. That is simply not how how 1st century Judeans thought. It's not how Jesus thought, It's not how first century Christians thought. So if you want to know what Paul meant about the earth here, you just have to read on two or three verses, because he says in verse five, you must kill off the parts of you that belong on earth. Illicit sexual behavior, uncleanness, passion, evil desire and greed, which is a form of idolatry. And then he has a further list. Anger, rage, wickedness, blasphemous, blasphemy, dirty talk coming out of your mouth, lying, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's what he means by earthly behavior here. He doesn't mean things that are to do with the physical space, time and matter reality of the world in which we live. The trouble is that we are so schooled in the narrative which says the purpose of life is to be saved by Jesus so that you will go to heaven, so you don't need to worry about earth anymore. Whereas that narrative is so strong in Western culture that, you know, most Christians believe that most non Christians believe that that's what Christians are supposed to believe. So that any attempt to say, no, the biblical story doesn't work like that. The biblical story is that God made heaven and earth, and that the heaven earth combination is what God intended. And God looked at all that he'd made heaven and earth together and said, it is very good. And humans are designed to stand exactly at the dangerous intersection between heaven and earth, reflecting God into the world we call Earth, the present reality where we live, and reflecting the praises and worship of earth back to the Creator. So the problem is, of course, with the word Earth. C.S. lewis wrote a splendid book called Studies in Words, one of the last books he wrote before he died, which shows how different words have shifted over time so that we hear them in one way, whereas in fact, when we go back, it didn't mean that. And it's obvious from this passage that what Paul means by earth here is the things which are in rebellion against God, the things which don't make earth mesh with heaven. But the gospel is about God coming into earth and then by the Holy Spirit pouring out his own breath into us creatures of earth, so that we are anticipating in the present time the coming together of heaven and earth, which is God's purpose. Never forget Revelation 21. The final scene in the Bible is a new heaven and a new earth, with the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth. It's not about saved souls leaving earth and going to heaven, it's the other way about. And the strap line for that, as I've said often enough, is not the dwelling of humans is now with God. It's the dwelling of God is now with humans. And that idea of the new creation of a new heavens and new earth, with humans now celebrating being at the heart of that in the presence of the God we know in Jesus and in the power of the Spirit, that's. That's what we're aiming at. That's what Paul's aiming at. And so he wants us to stop thinking the way we tend to, which is the way the newspapers and the media try to get us thinking. That is about illicit sexual behavior, passion, evil desire and greed. You know, the newspapers and the television channels are full of all that. And likewise the anger, rage, wickedness, blasphemy. It's almost as though Western culture is designed to make us think about those things. And actually the challenge of this passage is not how do we become so heavenly minded that we won't notice anything around us and bump into people on the street or whatever. It's how do we live the life of heaven, of God here on earth in earth being an advance example or model of the heaven earth reality which God has promised will come to pass one day.

[A]

I like the military term vanguard. We are the vanguard of the new heaven heaven. You know, I, I never pass up an attempt to militarize our conversations, Tom. Anyway, well, that's, that's a good high point for us to finish on, Tom. So that's all we have time for today. In our next episode though, we're going to look at the second coming and we're going to get into some of the fine print. We can also delve into the transfiguration. And then finally we're going to talk a little bit about this unseen realm. But if our listeners and viewers are bored in the interim, then they can check out the back catalog. I mean, Tom, you do some long drives from England up to Scotland. Maybe people are driving from Cornwall to Aberdeen or from Denver to New York. If you've got some hours you need to burn through, listen to some back episodes on the Ask and to Write Anything program you, the time will just fly by. And if you want to have the kids in the back, give them something to do, they could watch the YouTube program. We're on YouTube as well. But that's all we have for time for today. I'm Mike Bird from Ridley College.

[B]

And I'm Tom Wright from Wycliffe hall in Oxford.

[A]

And we look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Ask nt Write Anything. Lifelock. How can I help?

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