In 2009 I had the privilege of being in a small audience in Nairobi, Kenya to hear Rene Padilla deliver this talk. It is well worth reading!

When I hear and read the work of people like Rene and also his daughter, Ruth, I become very aware that there is something lacking in how I read the Biblical narrative. No matter how much I try, I can’t shake my own propensity to read it in terms of individual salvation and therefore be subject to all the limiting factors that go along with it. Whilst my overarching theology is social and therefore the ethics that follow are social, this is not my instinctual position – it’s one that requires constant work for me to see and hear in scripture. For this reason I appreciate voices of people like Rene and his daughter, Ruth. May they long continue to shape my imagination to more instinctually see the social story in all of scripture, driven by God’s big story of reconciliation and redemption – justice.