{"id":1389,"date":"2006-10-04T02:10:27","date_gmt":"2006-10-04T02:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/living-in-the-light.html"},"modified":"2006-10-04T02:10:27","modified_gmt":"2006-10-04T02:10:27","slug":"living-in-the-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/living-in-the-light.html","title":{"rendered":"Living in the Light"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eschatology is cast through the prism of light in Romans 13:11-14: it’s all about living in the light: “the night is far gone, the day is near.”
\nFor Paul, “night” here means living in the flesh, sinfulness, etc.. The “day” then is living a life shaped by love of neighbor, etc..
\nWright observes, and I had forgotten this, that this was Augustine’s conversion passage: “pick up and read” (tolle lege<\/em>). It’s a little overwhelming for me to ponder this passage in light of all Augustine has come to mean.
\nA major issue (for theology) is how Paul ties moral behavior to eschatology — in light of the arriving “day,” Christians are to live appropriately. I don’t know how many of my readers think of this, but one can sense either that Paul got it wrong or that Paul was like everyone else (which I believe to be true): a sense of imminency that was cushioned always by a sense of not knowing with precision when God might wrap up plans for planet earth.
\nTo show how Christocentric Paul’s (and Wright’s) thinking are: the moral behavior can be summed up as “putting on Christ” (13:14).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eschatology is cast through the prism of light in Romans 13:11-14: it’s all about living in the light: “the night is far gone, the day is near.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-romans"],"yoast_head":"\nLiving in the Light - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/living-in-the-light.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Living in the Light - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Eschatology is cast through the prism of light in Romans 13:11-14: it’s all about living in the light: “the night is far gone, the day is near.”\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/10\/living-in-the-light.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-10-04T02:10:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Living in the Light - 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