Volume 4, Issue 2, June 1991

Circumstances at Corinth forced Paul to develop a profoundly christological vision of ministry on both communal and individual levels. The need to differentiate the church from the world, and to overcome divisions within the community led to the insight that believers formed an organic unity, a body, which he then saw as the active presence of Christ in the world. This understanding deepened when accusations of “weakness” brought him to the realisation that the comportment of an authentic minister manifests “the life of Jesus”.

In this paper “disillusionment” is applied as an heuristic motif to interpret the experience of theological education.  It is found to describe not only a necessary characteristic of the educational experience, but also a central aspect of the theological task in itself.  The methodological convergence of doing theology and teaching theology is identified.  In the light of this, the reformed model of “teaching elder” is reconsidered in relation to the understanding of ministry of the Word in the Uniting Church in Australia.

As we seek to develop an authentic approach to leadership within our society, Matthew offers us profound insights about the nature of leadership within the Christian community.  In this gospel, Jesus is presented as the teacher, like Moses and one of the ancient scribes of Wisdom.  The disciple, who is an intimate and permanent student of Jesus, becomes the apprentice of wisdom.  Consequently, the disciple and Christian leader who is called into a life-long relationship with Jesus, like Jesus, becomes a social critic and bearer of wisdom.

This article considers two areas of narrative text.  Firstly, it goes into some detail about a splendid example of OT theological storytelling, called the Ark Narrative.  Secondly, it points to four critical moments in Israel’s understanding of its world, indicating that each of these is portrayed in the OT text in irreconcilably contrasting ways.  The four moments are: creation, flood, exodus, and settlement.  The thesis sustained is this: if sharply contrasting views of the past are preserved and juxtaposed, the concern is not with the manner of what happened but with its meaning in faith.  To simplify: the narrative is not history but theology.

Contemporary biblical scholarship is devoting increasing attention to the narrative nature of much biblical literature.  There is an author of the text and an author in the text, just as there is a reader in the text and a reader of the text.  The relationship between the reader in the narrative and the reader of the narrative determines its lasting value and classical status.

Problems associated with the distinction between the historical Jesus and the historic Jesus can be satisfactorily clarified only by paying much greater critical attention to the subject, the person making and using such distinctions, and by a methodological re-integration of the wholeness of consciousness.  Faith can thus employ historical scholarship, not cowed or threatened, but astutely aware of the possibilities, limitations and necessity of searching into its past, and of incarnating itself in this stream of time, space, human experience and development.