Sunday, September 17, 2006

From the Challenge of Jesus by N T Wright

Just loved this quote and thought I would share it with you all.

"my proposal is not that we know what the word god means and manage somehow to fit Jesus into that. Instead, I suggest that we think historically about a young Jew possessed of a desperately risky, indeed apparently crazy, vocation, riding into Jerusalem in tears, denouncing the temple and dying on a Roman cross - and that we somehow allow our meaning for the word god to be recentered around that point.

Let me recapitulate and develop something I said in the opening chapter of this book. After twenty years of serious historical-Jesus study I still say the Christian creeds ex animo, but I now mean something very different by them, not least by the word God itself. The portrait has been redrawn. At its heart, as disclosed in the biblical writings, we discover a human face surrounded by a crown of thorns. God's purpose for Israel has been completed. Salvation is of the Jews, and from the King of the Jews it has come. God's covenant faithfulness has been revealed in the good news of Jesus, bringing salvation for the whole cosmos."

wow! I really like the book and the author.

rev

3 comments:

urbanmonk said...

I suggest that we think historically about a young Jew possessed of a desperately risky, indeed apparently crazy, vocation, riding into Jerusalem in tears, denouncing the temple and dying on a Roman cross..

I like that

At its heart, as disclosed in the biblical writings, we discover a human face surrounded by a crown of thorns.

and that..

Always had a soft spot for the vulnerable GOd.. liked your post about the no kingdom kingdom too..

im in a good mood at the moment

Helen said...

my proposal is not that we know what the word god means and manage somehow to fit Jesus into that. Instead, I suggest that we think historically about a young Jew possessed of a desperately risky, indeed apparently crazy, vocation, riding into Jerusalem in tears, denouncing the temple and dying on a Roman cross - and that we somehow allow our meaning for the word god to be recentered around that point.

awesome...NT Wright at his coolest!

Anonymous said...

Ditto Monk's comments for me.

Thinking about Jesus yesterday in my car caused me to experience a sense of awe. I often think how words are so inadequate to express this awe.