Christ and Culture in the New Testament
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Believers in an increasingly secular world face the challenge of responding to the cultural changes that have taken place in the past generation, as Christians become a “cognitive minority,” especially in the West. Some attempt to restore the Christian culture of the past with political activism, and others accommodate to the cultural changes. Christians in a post-Christian world can learn much from believers who lived in the pre-Christian period. The New Testament demonstrates that, in a pluralistic and syncretistic world of religions, Christian identity exists neither through absorption into the culture nor through total withdrawal but through dialogue and critique.
This is a Logos Reader Edition. Learn more.
- Presents a well-researched and stimulating survey of Christ and culture in the New Testament
- Assist Christians today in navigating being a distinct minority culture that is loyal only to Christ
- Examines what early Christian writers of the 1st century offer believers facing marginalization in contemporary society
- Between Resistance and Accommodation
- Hellenism and Second Temple Judaism
- Jesus, the Kingdom of God, and Human Culture
- Having as Not Having: Paul and Culture
- Neither Jew nor Greek, Slave or Free, Male and Female?: Paul and Multiculturalism
- Citizens of Heaven: Paul and the State
- Is Paul among the Philosophers?
- The Church and the World in the Johannine Literature
- The Other Voices
- Middle-Class Morality?
- Conclusion: Christ and Culture: Lessons from the Past
The apostle Paul told the Corinthians that, though they be in the world, they must not be caught up in worldliness. But what should the proper relationship be between church and world? James Thompson brings together insight from biblical studies, history, theology, and sociology to offer more than superficial answers. The New Testament bears witness to the church as an alternative community. Personal and communal identities matter, and Thompson offers rich food for thought for the Christian imagination.
—Nijay K. Gupta, Northern Seminary
James Thompson offers us a well-researched and stimulating survey of Christ and culture in the New Testament. The chapters on John and the disputed Pauline letters rightly challenge standard views, and the brief concluding chapter is a tour de force. This volume will aid Christians today in wrestling with what it means to be a distinctive minority culture that offers ultimate allegiance only to Christ and engages ‘the world’ in light of the gospel.
—Michael J. Gorman, St. Mary’s Seminary & University