I’m preparing a sermon for this coming weekend on Romans 8 (part of our summer preaching series at CrossWalk). That led me to the Karl Barth Digital Library, a fantastic resource if you can gain access. I came across this paragraph on the Word that challenges the world, nothing like one of the greatest theologians of the last century putting things in perspective:

Wittingly or unwittingly, as a theologian he has exposed himself to this Word. He, at any rate, cannot possibly hide from himself the fact that this Word is directed precisely to his own world. This Word concerns mankind in all times and places, the theologian in his own time and place, and the world in its occupation with the routine Problems of the everyday. This Word challenges the world in which X, Y, and Z appear-with their own big words-to have the say and to determine the lot of all men and things as well as the lot of theologians. While the theologian reads the newspaper, he cannot forget that he has just read Isaiah 40 or John 1 or Romans 8. He, at any rate, cannot suppress the knowledge that the Word of God speaks not only of an infinitely deeper need but also of an infinitely higher promise than the sum total of all the needs and promises characteristic of his time and place. He cannot suppress his awareness that this Word is not only the word of God’s verdict and judgment upon all human existence and its perversion, but much more the word of God’s gracious covenant with man. He knows that this covenant is not only planned but already established and fulfilled. The Word to which he is exposed treats of man’s completed reconciliation with God. It speaks of the righteousness by which all human unrighteousness is already overcome, of the peace that has made all human wars (whether cold or hot) already superfluous and impossible, of the order by which a limit has already been set to all human disorder.

Source: Barth, Karl, Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, Eeardmans, 1963, p. 74-84. [http://solomon.dkbl.alexanderstreet.com/]

One Response to “The Word that Challenges the World”

1. David Dunak says:

   September 4, 2010 at 8:37 pm

   I trust that this is the Living Word, the Word Incarnate, the Logos, as in Our Savior the Lord Jesus.