‘A Gospel is not a biography.’ The remark has often been made but rarely fully explained or defended. As I understand it, two related propositions are at issue, and they both merit examination:

1. ‘A Gospel is not a biography because it is a distinct and different literary form.’

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of Scripture in Augustine's theology with a view to bringing a renewed perspective to the question of scriptural authority in Augustine and possibly for us today. Although not to be viewed as an original contribution to patristic scholarship, this review is also given as a possible aid to those who are meeting Augustine's view of Scripture for the first time or who are desirous of renewing a forgotten acquaintance.

One of the most significant words of the Bible is the word ‘covenant’. We read about God making a covenant with Abraham, renewing that covenant at Sinai, about David making a covenant with Jonathan, and again with the elders at Hebron when he became king. Jeremiah speaks of a day when God will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and in the New Testament, Jesus is presented to us as the Mediator of the New Covenant: ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.’

In a much publicised address to the 1979 National Conference of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), Dr Allan Boesak, a theologian of the black Dutch Reformed Mission Church, challenged the Church in South Africa to engage in acts of civil disobedience against apartheid laws:

The church must initiate and support meaningful pressure on the system as a non-violent way of bringing about change. The church must initiate and support programs of civil disobedience on a massive scale, and challenge especially white Christians on this issue. It no longer suffices to make statements condemning unjust laws as if nothing has happened. The time has come for the black church to tell the Government and its people: We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. So we will teach our people what it means to obey God rather than man in South Africa.