I am in Austin for the ACCS conference, and while on the plane coming here, I spent some time listening to N.T. Wright on Jesus and the victory of God. His treatment of the parable of the sower was profound, and seeing the prodigal son as Israel in exile is clearly the foundational way to understand that story. Wright says that some of the traditional applications are fine, but no one insists more forcefully and effectively than he does that we really need to understand the parables in their rooted and native habitat first. Amen.
I say this because it is the context for my criticisms of Wright in his timeless-truth-good-samaritanism-adventurism in Africa. I am not setting up shop to lecture Wright on the need to understand the parables contextually. He wrote the book on that. What baffles me is why he reverts to Sunday School nostrums when he gets to this subject. Perhaps it is because such nostrums appealing to the nickel seats are the only way to defend and advance economic incoherencies.
It seems to me that when he is doing exegesis and theology, he is, right or wrong, an extremely careful scholar. When he get to his attempted cultural applications, the medium mitigates against such care and all his hidden contradictions are almost immediately exposed.
Wright is not a theonomist at all, not even a little bit. But he wants us to apply the jubilee laws. How come? Why? Who says? Why those and not the “you shall not suffer a witch to live” ones? And why does Obama ask people like James Dobson about clam chowder, and Wright never has to field that one?
It is because the jubliee laws have immediate curb appeal, and there is no need for the eager buyer to look at the back yard. But the back yard has lots of verses in it. Immediate appeal is the reason why Christians rush to make moralistic applications of the parables in a way that neglects what Jesus was actually talking about. If Wright wants Christians generally to stop doing that, then he needs to stop doing it.