418 Quotes by N. T. Wright

Caesar's messengers didn't go round the world saying, 'Caesar is lord, so if you feel you need to have a Roman-empire kind of experience, you might want to submit to him'.

All Christian language about the future is a set of signposts pointing into a mist.

I have argued that the God of the Bible, and especially of the Gospels, can be understood only as God-in-public, and that methods of criticism designed to keep this rumor quiet need to be challenged by appropriate historical, theological, and political critique and replaced by methods that do justice to the reality of the texts and hence do justice - in the much fuller sense - in the public world that the Gospels demand to address.

Dust we are, and to dust we shall return. But God can do new things with dust.

If what we want is God’s justice, coming to sort things out, we will do better to get entirely out of the way and let God do his own work, rather than supposing our burst of anger (which will most likely have all sorts of nasty bits to it, such as wounded pride, malice and envy) will somehow help God do what needs to be done.

I feel about John ['s gospel] like I feel about my wife; I love her very much, but I wouldn't claim to understand her.(Following Jesus, p. 27.)

Stripped of its arrogance, its desire to make off with half of the patrimony and never be seen again, history belongs at the family table. If theology, the older brother, pretends not to need or notice him it will be a sign that he has forgotten, after all, who his father is.

The heirs of that liberal theology are today keen to marginalize the Bible, declaring that it supports slavery and other wicked things, because they don't like what it says on other topics such as sexual ethics. But if you push the Bible off the table, you are merely colluding with pagan empire, denying yourself the sourcebook for your kingdom critique of oppression. The Sadducee didn't know the Bible or God's power; that's why they denied the resurrection and supported Rome.

The resurrection completes the inauguration of God's kingdom. . . . It is the decisive event demonstrating thet God's kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven.""The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it.