Speaking soteriology

...so we are all just about recovered from our 7 minute presentations on an angle of the work of Christ. However, the wrestling with how to communicate it still continues. The WordAlive guys, who visited on Wednesday, gave us some depressing stats for how many people actually read the bible these days. There is an even more pressing need to communicate our salvation in ways that are faithful to the Bible and can be communicated in modern parlance or at least with analogies and metaphors to which today's world can relate.

A friend of mine gave a very fine presentation with some really creative images drawn from popular culture and contemporary fiction.

The book I am recommending promises to be helpful. As we are taken through metaphors from the Bible which communicate the work of Christ, we might better think through how to preach on this essential issue. It doesn't promise to teach us how to preach these things but it does seem intent on exploring the range of biblical metaphors about salvation in a straight-forward way. It also explains the power of figurative language. The book talks about how 'Salvation is compared to more mundane realities in the lives of the New Testament authors and their audiences for the purpose of conveying spiritual truth.' (p.16)

This means that as preachers and teachers, we must surely follow suit with that precedent set. Modern-day analogies and metaphors can be used to further unpack the biblical constructions.

Next time, if I am asked for real to talk about the Work of Christ, without having to defend a particular view, I will use this book to help me. It presents the full kaleidoscope of images that is faithful to the biblical presentation of the atonement and what it achieves: