The Crown and the Fire by N. T. Wright

Author:N. T. Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing
Published: 2014-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The Call of God

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran . . . and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. (Genesis 12.1-5 nrsv)

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. (Mark 1.16-20 nrsv)

There is a standard romantic tradition of how the call of God comes to a person. We envisage the lonely individual, out one night meditating under the stars, hearing a voice out of nowhere that challenges him (it’s usually a him) to a new vocation. He takes it to be the voice of God, he sets off on his travels, and from then on works flat out for God through thick and thin.

And there are various passages in the Bible which really seem to reinforce that tradition. The call of Isaiah, for example — a vision of God in the temple, finishing up with, ‘Whom shall I send?’ ‘Here am I, send me.’ The call of the boy Samuel: ‘Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth.’ Paul on the road to Damascus. Peter, James, and John in the fishing boats. And, perhaps above all, the call of Abraham, at the end of the beginning of Genesis. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and humans in his own image; his human creatures rebelled, Cain murdered Abel, the flood destroyed all except Noah and the chosen animals, and even after that they built the tower of Babel. Chaos, arrogance, sin, and death; and out of the midst of it God called Abraham to set about the long process of reversing the rebellion, called him to the lonely task of founding the family through whom the world would be put to rights again.

Now in a sense this tradition gives a true picture. There are moments when each individual stands alone before his or her maker, and business must be done on a strictly one-to-one basis, without fudging or sliding round the real issues. That can’t be shirked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.