The Best of Barrett

Last updated on: December 9, 2016 at 12:31 pm by Taylor S. Brown

The Best of Barrett 2016-12-09T12:31:03-06:00 Taylor S. Brown

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Ben Witherington has been posting sermon selections from his doctoral supervisor, the late, great C. K. Barrett, over on his blog, The Bible and Culture, for the last couple of weeks. Barrett was not only one of the greatest New Testament scholars of the twentieth century (James D. G. Dunn described Barrett as “the greatest UK commentator on New Testament writings since J. B. Lightfoot”), he was also a very gifted preacher. It has been a blessing to read this material and we should all be very grateful that Dr. Witherington is making Barrett’s sermons available to a new generation of students of Scripture.

C.K. Barrett

The sermon that Dr. Witherington posted today is particularly powerful. The selection is titled “Living ‘As If Not'” and in it Barrett exposits 1 Corinthians 7. Barrett really draws out what it means to live as Christians in the “now-and-not-yet” reality of the death and resurrection of Christ. The whole sermon is excellent. Here is a sample to wet your appetite:

Paul’s world—the glittering formidable, eternal, Roman world, has gone and left but a shambles of broken masonry. But this is not what he is saying. There is no scornful cynicism here. Paul knows that the fashion of this world is passing away because a new world has already dawned. The hour has struck on the clock of world history. For Christ has come and made all things new. This world is giving place not to nothing, not to anarchy, but to Christ. This is what determines our attitude to the world. The ultimate test of the lives we live as Christians is this—when people look at us, what do they think of? What do we suggest? A sex symbol? The world of social relationships? Business, the making of money? Intellectual abstraction? Or do they look at us and think of Christ?

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