Wisdom from Graeme Goldsworthy

I just finished reading The Goldsworthy Trilogy, three early works of Graeme Goldsworthy, published here in one volume. The first two, Gospel and Kingdom and The Gospel in the Revelation were exceptional. I can't praise them highly enough. The third, Gospel and Wisdom, focused on the wisdom literature of the OT (mainly Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes). I was less enamored of this one, but on the strenth of the first two I would give this volume an A+ rating. This is a great resource for understanding the Gospel-centeredness of the OT and also of The Revelation of John.

About a year ago Justin at Buzzard Blog actually interviewed Dr. Goldsorthy. Some highlights:

"...contrary to some inexact Christian pious talk, we cannot live the gospel. We can, and must, seek to live consistently with it, but only Jesus lived, and died, the gospel."

"...evangelical piety can lead people to rush from reading a text straight into the question of what this says to us and about us. But, there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus and [Biblical theology] helps us to see how Jesus mediates the meaning of any text to us. The Christian is defined by his or her relationship to Christ, not to any other person or event. Thus all persons and events in the Bible must stand in a discernible relationship to Christ if they are to say something about us."

"...the first question we put to a text is not 'What does this say to or about us?,' but 'How does this text testify to Jesus?' I say again, the Christian life is defined by our relationship to Jesus, so until we understand who and what Jesus is, we cannot properly understand what our relationship to him is."