N.T. Wright: “Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What
He Did, and Why He Matters”
I’ve just finished reading “Simply Jesus” and I must say
that it was simply wonderful. In this
book, Wright brings us a vision of Jesus that is sorely lacking in the church
(and world) today. Wright gives us fifteen beautifully written chapters
explaining how, by-and-large, the church has misunderstood who Jesus was, what He
did and why He matters. The “new
vision” part of the subtitle is provocative because it suggests that Wright is
going to give us his own novel ideas about Jesus; but in point-of-fact, all he
is doing is bringing us back into Jesus’ first century context to help us
understand the vision of Jesus that the Scripture and the early followers of
Jesus believed and proclaimed. The “new” vision is, in fact, the “old” vision
that the church has largely forgotten or, in some cases, suppressed. Thankfully
there are many churches, SGCC included, that have been reviving the original
vision of Jesus and His mission and challenging the church at-large to re-think
the Gospel of the Kingdom.
Rather than write a lengthy review of my own I will link to
two reviews (
here and
here) that sum up my thoughts fairly well. I will, however, “simply”
state that I loved this book. Wright
rightly
captures the importance of Jesus in fulfilling the purpose of God to, as he
says, “bring heaven and earth together”. It’s the story of Jesus becoming King
and inaugurating a
new world, a new
order of things. This is not so much the story of “
How God became King” (ironically, the title of his book published a
year after
Simply Jesus), but
that God became King in Jesus. And
why did God become King in Jesus? To fulfill
His purpose to bring New Creation by renewing
this creation, by making it what He originally intended it to be.
Jesus’ coming was not simply to “forgive sins” and take believers up to heaven.
No. Jesus’ purpose was to bring “heaven” to earth and create a brand new world
where God is King and the world, the Cosmos, is His (king)Dome.
Simply Jesus is an
easy read and should be a wake-up call to the church. Simply read it!
If the above links did not work, try these below:
