lifeasmission

The Challenge of Jesus

January 7, 2006

N.T. Wright has fast become one of my favorite authors. He is one of the leading New Testament scholars in the world today. Not only is his writing profound and insightful he also tends to write in something of an artistic sense as well. Like music, his writing communicates more than merely what the words say.

Anyway, I just finished reading this book by him and I thought I’d recommend it to you by way of some quotes (1 per chapter) and some personal observations.

1) The Challenge of Studying Jesus

“I believe, in fact, that the historical quest for Jesus is a necessary and nonnegotiable aspect of Christian discipleship and that we in our generation have a chance to be renewed in discipleship and mission precisely by means of this quest.” p. 14

2) The Challenge of the Kingdom

” What Jesus was to Israel, the church must now be for the world.” p. 53

3) The Challenge of the Symbols

“I shall argue that Jesus implicitly and explicitly attacked what had become standard symbols of the second-Temple Jewish worldview; he saw them not as bad in themselves but as out of date, belonging to the period before the coming of the kingdom and to be jettisoned now that the new day had dawned.” p. 55

4) The Crucified Messiah

“His death was not simply the messy bit that enables our sins to be forgiven but then can be forgotten. The cross is the surest, truest and deepest window of the very heart and character of the living and loving God; the more we learn about the cross is all its historical and theological dimensions, the more we discover about the One in whose image we are made and hence about our own vocation to be the cross-bearing people, the people in whose lives and service the living God is made known.” p. 94-95

5) Jesus & God

“Once we see who Jesus is, we are not only summoned to follow him in worship, love and adoration, but to shape our world by reflecting his glory into it.” p. 124

6) The Challenge of Easter

“The present life of the church in other words, is not about ‘soul-making,’ the attempt to produce or train disembodied beings for a future disembodied life. It is about working with fully human beings who will be reembodied at the last, after the model of the Messiah.” p. 143

7) Walking to Emmaus in a Postmodern World

“I believe we have this as our vocation: to tell the story, to live by the symbols, to act out the praxis and to answer the questions in such a way as to become in ourselves and in our mission in God’s world the answer to the prayer that rises inarticulately, now, not just from one puzzled psalmist [see Psalms 42 & 43] but from the whole human race and indeed the whole of God’s creation…”

The Light of the World

“… it is not enough to say that being a Christian and being a professional or an academic is about high moral standards, using every opportunity to talk to people about Jesus, praying for or with your students being fair in your grading and honest in your speaking. All that is vital and necessary, but you are called to something much, much more. You are called, prayerfully, to discern where in your discipline the human project is showing signs of exile and humbly and boldly to act symbolically in ways that declare the powers have been defeated, that the kingdom has come in Jesus the Jewish Messiah, that the new way of being human has been unveiled, and to be prepared to tell the story that explains what these symbols are all about.” p. 186-187

I’m hoping that might be enough to wet some of your appetites. Much of what Wright has to say is challenging and even more is inspiring. I resonate with much of what Wright says for 3 main reasons.

1. He is committed to helping people understand Jesus and all he was about in the context of 1st century Judaism, something far too many pastors and teachers gloss over.
2. He thinks that Jesus’ life, his teaching and ministry, and just as important as his death and resurrection, also something most churches fail to emphasize.
3. He is willing to dialogue and learn from other writers and teachers whose theology he disagrees with, but whose insights, opinions, and points of view may nevertheless be enlightening.

Enjoy!

Related Posts

1. Jesus – A Theological Deconstructionist
2. Consuming Jesus
3. Jesus Dies?

Posted in: books, church, Jesus, theology