Review of N. T. Wright’s Simply Good News (Part 2)
In chs.1-2 Wright lays out a general outline of his understanding of the gospel and some of the challenges presenting the gospel to the world today encounters. In chs.3-4 he focuses on Jesus, his relation to the gospel, and the ways and influences that have distorted this. Jesus Jesus both announces and enacts God’s greater New Exodus. He is God’s good news, his Gospel, in person. The central theme of the good news that he is is the kingdom of God. But he was not alone. Many dreams and visions of this coming kingdom pervaded the Judaism of the first century. But his vision of the kingdom differed from all the others in that he proposed a kingdom that would come and be practiced in a way no one else expected (Kindle Locations 550-551). As the gospel in person Jesus busied himself inculcating a kingdom perspective by telling strange riddling stories about it and enacting kingdom practices. The former were the parables we find in the gospe...