I still remember the first time I picked up the first volume of Raymond Brown’s Commentary on John. It was fat, chunky, untrimmed edges as the early Anchor Bible volumes had, hefty to hold, and crammed with textual, theological and historical information about ( in my view) the greatest book in the New Testament. I was finishing at College, had slowly worked through the equally demanding volume of C K Barrett, and was overcome with the kind of desire only those who love books might not mock! I paid £6 for it – and later went back to buy the second volume after getting permission from Sheila – well £12 was a LOT of money in 1976, and we still had some furniture to buy! Those volumes opened up a broad and exciting world of New Testament scholarship for me. They remain favourite companions on the road towards understanding Jesus more fully, carefully, faithfully.
Raymond Brown pioneered study of what he called the Johannine community, and in his later even bigger volume on John’s Epistles explored the inner mind of John the community theologian, who argued passionately for the integrity of the theological community to which he wrote. Which brings me back to the community theologian. John’s vision of Christ as the one who reveals God as Spirit, Light and Love, is crystal clear, and deeply antagonistic to the kind of distortions that arise when a community wants Christ without a corresponding life of integrity – walking in the Spirit, living in the Light and being made perfect in Love. As a community theologian he acted as a corrective voice, recalling to the original vision of Christ and what it means to live for Jesus in a culture at best complacent of his demands, at worst hostile to those communities of his followers who seek to walk in the Light, live by the Spirit and perform faithfully the script – ‘if God so loved us we ought also to love one another.’
Raymond Brown, through his books is one of the community theologians I consult often and gratefully. Not least because he expounds with great learning and care, the Gospel and Letters of John, the community theologian. And he does so, enabling people like us to learn, and then to share with the theological community to which we belong insights that come as corrective voice, clarifying vision, and supportive faith. So through conversation, preaching, prayer and living that is faithful to Christ, and kept faithful by interpreting the script of the one who reveals God as Spirit, as Light and as Love, together we become a community of theologians.
Still thinking about this………….
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