#n.t.wright

[american-protestant]

On Earth As In Heaven - NTWrightPage

Like time itself, certain ideas creep up on you and, before you know it, they have changed the way you think about everything else. That’s h

[theologycentral]

History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology

[kyivhill]

The problem comes in three stages: 1) We have swapped our biblical heritage of new heavens and new earth for a form of Platonism (“going to heaven”—which you find in the first century in Plutarch, not in Paul!); 2) we have swapped the biblical vocation of humans (to be “a kingdom and priests”) for a moral contract in which the most important thing is whether or not we’ve passed the moral exam, and if we haven’t what can be done about it; and 3) we have therefore swapped the rich biblical account of what Jesus’ death achieved for a slimmed-down version which can easily be heard to say that an angry God took out his bad temper on his own Son . . . which is the sort of thing a pagan religion might say.

N.T.Wright

[kyivhill]

It seems as though the world knows in its bones that the cross of Jesus was the ultimate revelation of true power and true love. Most people for some of their lives, and some people for most of their lives, nurse sorrows and wounds whether secret or open; and the thought or sight of Jesus on the cross, perhaps particularly when it’s painted beautifully or set to wonderful and appropriate music, speaks of the true God not as a distant, faceless bureaucrat, nor as a bullying boss, but as the one who has strangely come into the middle of the pains and sorrows of the world and taken their full force on himself. In a sense, all of Christian theology, certainly theology of the cross, is the attempt to explain, to give a wise and scriptural account of, that very immediate, personal, visceral impact.

N.T.Wright

[kyivhill]

From the very beginning, Jesus’ followers insisted that his crucifixion was the personal expression of the ultimate divine love: “the son of God loved me and gave himself for me,” said Paul in Galatians 2:20, and he and John return to this theme again and again (John 13:1 says “having loved his own in the world, he loved them to the uttermost”). Romans 8 is the great climax: Nothing in all creation shall separate us from the love of God in the Messiah, Jesus our Lord.

N.T.Wright

[kyivhill]

So the long story of God’s plan to put things right, starting with Abraham, climaxing in Jesus and the Spirit, and looking ahead to the new heavens and new earth, isn’t the story of guilty humans being forgiven so they could go to heaven, but of idolatrous (and yes, therefore guilty) humans being rescued in order to be worshippers and workers in God’s restoration movement, God’s kingdom-project.

N.T.Wright

[mosaikhd]

the kingdoms

The kingdoms of the world run on violence. The kingdom of God, Jesus declared, runs on love.

[wolleswelt]

Himmel & Erde

Lese gerade "Die verändernde Kraft des Evangeliums" von Faix & Künkler (Hg.). Ein sehr empfehlenswertes Buch, voll mit theologischen Artikeln, die versuchen, das Evangelium in seiner ursprünglichen Größe im Kontext des 1. Jahrhunderts freizulegen und die Bedeutung dieser verändernden Kraft für heute auszulegen. N.T. Wright ist auch mit drei Artikeln dabei.

In "Der gesellschaftliche Auftrag der Christen - Von der Berufung, die Welt zu verändern" schreibt Wright interessante Gedanken über die verbreitete Vorstellung, Gott wolle uns von der Erde wegnehmen und in den Himmel befördern:

Ich frage mich manchmal, ob die Geschichte der westlichen Welt nicht anders verlaufen wäre, wenn die Reformatoren den Epheserbrief statt des Römer- oder Galaterbriefes als Grundlage für ihre Theologie verwendet hätten.

Dann betrachtet er ein paar Stellen aus dem Epheserbrief. In Kapitel 1,10 findet er die Schlüsselstelle für das, was Gott erreichen will:

Paulus sagt, dass Gott vorhatte, die Dinge im Himmel und die Dinge auf Erden zusammenzubringen, wenn die Zeit erfüllt ist in Christus. Hätten wir von Anfang an diese Perspektive gehabt, hätten wir uns nie der Vorstellung hingegeben, Gott könne uns von der Erde wegnehmen und in den Himmel befördern wollen. In diesem großen Gebet im ersten Kapitel geht es nämlich gerade darum, dass Gott Himmel und Erde zusammenbringen will und dass wir in diesen Plan einbezogen sind.

Nachdem er weitere Stellen aus Epheser hinzugezogen hat, folgert Wright:

Der Epheserbrief fordert uns heraus, Menschen zu sein, durch die Gott Veränderung in die Welt bringt [...] Rettung vor dem Tod bedeutet, das wir gerettet sind, um Gottes Volk in seiner neuen Schöpfung zu sein.