Captive to the Word of God: Engaging the Scriptures for Contemporary Theological Reflection

by Miroslav Volf

In this book, Miroslav Volf, a systematic theologian, interprets texts of the Christian scriptures and invites others to also delve into, as he puts it, the site of God’s self-revelation for the sake of humanity’s integral salvation.

Genres: Theology

188 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 2010

About the author

Miroslav Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and the founding director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. “One of the most celebrated theologians of our time,” (Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury), Volf is a leading expert on religion and conflict. His recent books include Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities, and Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation—winner of the 2002 Grawmeyer Award in Religion.

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Reviews

[Ashley Chesnut · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volf gives a “theological” reading of several portions of Scripture, and he differentiates a theological reading from an exegetical reading. Most of the chapters are papers he presented at various conferences. The unity of the book is how’s he’s interpreting the Scriptures more so than the content of the portions he’s interpreting, which include:
-1 Peter (focus on us as aliens and sojourners)
-John (focus on his oppositional dualities of light and darkness and his claim that God is love)
-Ecclesiastes (the futility of human striving)
-He also looks at Paul’s way of doing theology

The content itself is solid. The rating does not reflect the quality of what’s written. But it is more of a dense, academic read for a specific audience.

[Craig Prather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just not that engaging. Volf has a few good nuggets, but most of it was a dry read

[Daunavan Buyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. Volf provides an incredible amount of practical teaching as well as rich, deep, and thoughtful theology in this collection of essays that seek to answer the question: how are believers to orient their lives around the truth of God's word? I know a good book after I'm done reading it because I've dog-eared and underlined almost every page.. this was especially true of "Captive to the Word of God." The level of reading is a bit higher than I have been accustomed to, but that made it all the more rich, as skim reading becomes impossible because you can miss out on the richness of what is being communicated.. Good stuff!

[Neil White · Rating 3 out of 5]

Miroslav Volf is an immensely wise person and these six chapters taken from various writings each impart some of his wisdom and way of reading scripture on some wide-ranging topics. Being a collection of works they don't build upon one another like in some of his other works but there are a lot of good insights and it is a very quick read.