Response to Simply Christian by N.T WrightNicolas Thomas Wright, also known as N.
T. Wright was born on 1 December 1948. He is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and is one of the greatest learners of the New Testament. His academic works has usually been published under his shortened name N.
T. Wright. But the most fundamental works “What St Paul Really Said” and “Simply Christian” are announced under more informal name of Tom Wright.The book “Simply Christian” by N.
T. Wright is very easy to read. The contention of the work is also easy. God created our world and something is false and untrue with how things are, according to the sin.
Jesus Christ has to perform a saving operation on the Earth by setting the world to rights. The basic part of this story is Christians.The admirers of the book are both believers and atheistic people. Book is written in a challenging and understandable way, so that Wright created his fiction in three parts.
In the first part the author layouts 4 echoes that trace at theism, which definitely mean the Christian God. The equivalents for these four echoes are our longing for justice, our wish for relationships, our appreciation of beauty and the universal expression of spirituality. In the second part author enlighten us into the main Christian theology. The last third part of the Wright’s book teaches how modern Christian should live his or her life today.
Wright clarified that the 4 echoes do not exactly appeal to “God to any God, let alone the Christian God. At best, they wave their arms in a rather general direction, like someone in a cave who hears an echoing voice but has no idea where it’s coming from.” (55) One of the most controversial Wright’s idea is that God was his juncture of heaven and earth traversing in a different ways. If our vision of heaven would be “the presence of God” then it does the matter.
Actually we are in the presence of God everywhere: in corporate worship, while praying etc. There are a great many of the others ways in which we are in God’s subsistence. The author makes an attack on pantheism and deism. Unfortunately the understanding of Christianity is sometimes deistic.
For a proper comprehension of New Testament it is necessary to understand Jesus in Wright’s opinion. ”Christianity is all about the belief that the living God, the fulfillment of all his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this the finding, the saving, the giving of new life in Jesus.” (92) There are two branches that can be very useful to apologetics are: “what can we know about Jesus” and “can we trust the gospels.” Tom Wright is on the edge of historical learning.
His work on defending the faith from attacks is awesome. He is doing his work by making accurate and rational historical analysis.Two chapters of his book are dedicated to Holy Spirit, which is the main power of his work. Every time Wright is holding the focus on the accent of Holy Spirit and God.
”The two walk together hand in hand. We can’t talk about them apart… The point of the Spirit is to enable those who follow Jesus to take into all the world the news that he is Lord, that he has won the victory over the forces of evil, that a new world has opened up, and that we are to help to make it happen.” (122)The third chapter is merely dedicated to prayer, glory, the story and the task, Lord’s house and the new creation. This branch was very profitable.
These are all methods that Lord has invokes his nation to bring “heaven on earth”, or to call it in another way “the kingdom of God”. The author annotates that heaven on the earth came when Jesus was baptized. And the saving work that was done by Jesus Christ together with Holy Spirit gives us the chance to live our lives as a new people in new creation.Here are some citations that clarify our notion of church and it’s task on the earth that belong to Tom Wright, written in the book:”[the church] was called to bring the transformative new of God’s rescuing justice to the whole creation.
” (200) “The body is more than merely an image of ‘unity-in-diversity; it’s a way of saying that the church is called to do the work of Christ, to be the means of his action for the world.” (201)The theme of mission of the church is opened in the last chapter. Also we find conclusions to the whole book summarizing all the thoughts of the author. ”To work for a healing, restorative justice… every Christian is called to work, at every level of life, for a world in which reconciliation and restoration are put into practice, and so to anticipate that day when God will indeed put everything to rights.
” (226)When we have good personal relations with God we are seeking love and forgiveness. We accustom this with one another. After all the church have to adore and encourage a passion for a beauty. ”We are called to be part of God’s new creation, called to be agents of that new creation here and now.
We are called to model and display that new creation in symphonies and in family life, in restorative justice and poetry, in holiness and service to the poor, in politics and painting.” (236)The book “Simply Christian” written by great theologist and scholar Tom Wright is the book for every Christian. Great many of the problematic and controversial questions are enlighten in this book and number of people will definitely find the answers on their numerous questions. Works CitedWright, Tom “Simply Christian”
