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The New Testament Examination
As we approach the study of the New Testament it is important to be aware that as twenty-first-century readers/hearers of the New Testament writings we are entering the first-century C.E. as foreigners who live in a different social setting, and so we need to understand the social system these writings were written in. Malina (1993: xi) notes that for one to understand what another person says and means requires a listener or reader to somehow share in the world of meaning of the speaker or writer; thus, to understand what people say one must know their social system. As our study is of the New Testament, Malina (1993: xi) reminds us that the social system supporting the New Testament is that of the Eastern Mediterranean of the first-century A.D. [C.E.]. Understanding this world will help us to see what is common between the first-century world and the twenty-first-century world, and through that discovery we will be able to transport the biblical principles from the biblical world to our world; and doing this will help us avoid ethnocentric anachronisms.23 Thus, “The only way to avoid such misinterpretations, such ethnocentric anachronisms, is to understand the culture from which our foreign writings come” (Malina 1993: 12). This culture serves as the larger frame from which we interpret these writings. This culture is formed by six cultural cues: Perception, Feeling, Acting, Believing, Admiring, and Striving.24 So, using these cultural cues to understand another culture we become involved in the process of abstract thinking. Hence, every higher abstraction is a sort of a bigger picture. What abstraction enables us to do is to represent and make some order among the countless experiences we undergo in the course of our interacting with our multiple environments; our ability to think abstractly enables us to generate some orderly or patterned understanding of our complex experiences (Malina 1993: 12–26). The word “culture” is such an abstraction.
Christian Theism
In relation to prime reality, God is infinite and personal (triune), transcendent and immanent, omniscient, sovereign; hence, the concept of God is what holds together all the answers for the fundamental questions of life, and through his attributes his nature and design of all creation is revealed, and he sustains all things (Sire 2004a: 26-29). In relation to the nature of external reality, God created the cosmos ex nihilo to operate with a uniformity of cause and effect in an open system; thus, there is order in all of creation and he continues to be involved with it (Sire 2004a: 29-31). In relation to what is a human being, human beings are created in the image of God and thus possess personality, self-transcendence, intelligence, morality, gregariousness and creativity, and thus, human beings are to reflect the God who created them in dignity and dominion (Sire 2004a: 31-34). In relation to death, for each person death is either the gate to life with God and his people or the gate to eternal separation from the only thing that will ultimately fulfil human aspirations (Sire 2004a: 40-41). In relation to the possibility of man knowing cognitively, human beings can know both the world around them and God himself because God has built into them the capacity to do so and because he takes an active role in communicating with them (Sire 2004a: 31-37). In relation to man knowing what is right and wrong, human beings were created good, but through the Fall the image of God became defaced, though not so ruined as not to be capable of restoration; through the work of Christ, God redeemed humanity and began the process of restoring people to goodness, though any given person may choose to reject that redemption. (Sire 2004a: 37-42).
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Design
1.2 Research Methodology
1.3 Research Survey
2. RESEARCH RATIONALE
2.1 The initial thesis
2.2 The apparent synthesis
2.3 The emerging hypothesis
3. WHY WORLDVIEW?
3.1 The content of a worldview
3.2 The competing worldviews
3.3 The characteristics of a worldview
4. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL STRUGGLE
4.1 In search of an identity
5. BIBLICAL ETHICS VERSUS SECULAR ETHICS
5.1 Humanity in Confrontation
5.2 Humanity in Conflict
5.3 Humanity in Christianity
6. THE THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
6.1 The Ontological dimension
6.2 The Epistemological dimension
6.3 The Cosmological dimension
6.4 The Teleological dimension
6.5 The Moral dimension
7. THE MODEL OF PAULINE ETHICS
7.1 The Setting of Paul’s Ethics
7.2 The Sources of Paul’s Ethics
7.3 The Spirit in Paul’s Ethics
8. IMAGO DEI IN THE CORINTHIAN CORRESPONDENCE
8.1 The Concept of the Image
8.2 The Context of the Image
8.3 The Covenant through the Image
8.4 The Content of the Image
8.5 The Conflict within the Image
8.6 The Christ displaying Image
8.7 The Calling to reflect that Image
9. IMAGO DEI AS EMBODIED FULLY IN CHRIST
9.1 Imitation of Christ
9.2 Kenosis of Christ
9.3 Servant-hood of Christ
9.4 Humility of Christ
9.5 Exaltation of Christ
10. CONCLUSION
