Recently I began reading a book that aroused my curiosity. I have heard about N.T. Wright, but never quite invested in much time in his speaking and writing ministry. His polite British manner interests me but I can not always get his point in the end. The subtitle of this book is “Why the Gospel Is News an What Makes It Good.” Let me first say that I am only half way through the book, but thought to share some things here while it is fresh in my mind.
To start off, he contrasts an approach or outlook of the Gospel of Jesus Christ which he sees as “good advice,” verses “good news.” I think I get his point in that. In other words, the original message of the Gospel was basically an announcement.
Mark 1:14-15:
Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” NKJV
However, I would have to say that there was some “good advice” attached to this announcement. Repent and believe! After Jesus finished what He came to do, that is die on the Cross for our sins, rise from the dead on the third day, and ascend to heaven, this Good News began to come into view even clearer. I agree with Wright and most of the Christian world that this was an event that changed everything. And the announcement of that event continues to impact individuals and the world to this day. Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords! He reigns!
By believing the Gospel we are forgiven and inherit eternal life. We will never really die because we will always be with God. However there is more to the Good News. All of creation will ultimately benefit from the reign of Christ. He reigns in the lives of believers, and this should obviously have implications beyond my personal world. This is where N.T. Wright has much to say, concerning things often left out in our common understanding. Here is one excerpt that resonated with me from page 115:
“Here we have to maintain a balance that history shows to be very difficult. On the one hand, some people will shrug their shoulders and say there is nothing we can do to make the world a better place until Jesus returns. All we can do is alleviate some of the worst evils and look after those who are suffering. This simply ignores the New Testament emphasis.
The risen Jesus already claims all authority in heavens an on earth. Paul, sometimes writing from prison, speak in grandiose terms of the Messiah already reigning, of his having defeated all the power of heaven and earth. The early Christians were not fools. They were not whistling in the dark. They were not claiming that everything was just fine and getting finer by the minute. They faced persecution, prison, suffering, and death on a scale unimaginable to most comfortable Western Christians today. But they didn’t give up saying what they said about the present reign of Jesus. And they saw their own work as somehow bound up with that. Paul, at the end of his remarkable chapter on the resurrection (1 Cor. 15), declares that because of the coming resurrection, “the work you are doing will not be worthless.” Somehow, in ways we cannot at present discern, what is done in the present out of love for God and in the power of the Spirit will be part of God’s new world when it finally arrives.
Thus it won’t do to say there is nothing that can be done to improve matters before Jesus returns. Yes, the second coming will accomplish all sorts of things of which at present we can only dream. I do not expect to see the wolf lying down with the lamb in the present state of creation, and if I were to meet a lion in the street (fortunately an unlikely event in eastern Scotland), I would not rely on its having read Isaiah 11 and knowing that it is now a vegetarian. But whenever someone says that there is no point in working for justice in the world; when anyone says that it doesn’t matter what we do to the planet because God is going to throw it away one day and leave us in heaven instead; when anyone says there is no point in working for unity in the church, for reconciliation between different nations, cultures and ethnic groups—then we must protest. Jesus the Messiah has risen from the dead! A new world has come into being, and within that new world all kinds of new possibilities are now open.
This was the mood of the early Christians—despite the Roman Empire’s best effort to persecute them and and stamp out the movement—began to live lives of generosity, caring for the poor, and tending the sick, including people with whom they had no connection through family or through work. They realized, as they worshipped the God they saw in Jesus and celebrated his good news, that a new way of being human had been launched. They looked at impossibilities and prayed their way through them. They were mocked and vilified, attacked and driven out of communities. But the work went on. New things happened. People saw the difference…….the power of evil that had lent its weight to injustice and oppression for so many centuries had been defeated on the cross.
Thus the early Christians prayed and acted on the basis that the good news was true.”
So what do you think? Do you feel that something has been missing in the message of Jesus as we today and our modern world understands it?
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