N.T. Wright quotes

[Arguments about God are] like pointing a flashlight toward the sky to see if the sun is shining. (N.T. Wright)
Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about. View quote
N.T. Wright
Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God's new Temple. They are, individually and corporately, places where heaven and earth meet. View quote
N.T. Wright
Logic cannot comprehend love; so much the worse for logic. View quote
N.T. Wright
You can't reconcile being pro-life on abortion and pro-death on the death penalty. View quote
N.T. Wright
Heard in full sound, the Gospels tell about the establishment of a theocracy, and portray what theocracy looks like with Jesus as king. View quote
N.T. Wright
Love is not just tolerance. It's not just distant appreciation. It's a warm sense of, 'I am enjoying the fact that you are you.' View quote
N.T. Wright
You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship. View quote
N.T. Wright
The whole point of the kingdom of God is Jesus has come to bear witness to the true truth, which is nonviolent. When God wants to take charge of the world, he doesn't send in the tanks. He sends in the poor and the meek. View quote
N.T. Wright
Heaven is important, but its not the end of the world. View quote
N.T. Wright
the work of salvation, in its full sense, is (1) about whole human beings, not merely souls; (2) about the present, not simply the future; and (3) about what God does through us, not merely what God does in and for us. (N.T. Wright)
Someone who is determinedly trying to show God how good he or she is is likely to become an insufferable prig. View quote
N.T. Wright
When we begin to glimpse the reality of God, the natural reaction is to worship him. Not to have that reaction is a fairly sure sign that we haven't yet really understood who he is or what he's done. View quote
N.T. Wright
God's plan is not to abandon this world, the world which he said was "very good." Rather, he intends to remake it. And when he does he will raise all his people to new bodily life to live in it. That is the promise of the Christian gospel. View quote
N.T. Wright
The point of following Jesus isn't simply so that we can be sure of going to a better place than than this after we die. Our future beyond death is enormously important, but the nature of the Christian hope is such that it plays back into the present life. We're called, here and now, to be instruments of God's new creation, the world-put-to-rights which has already been launched by Jesus and of which Jesus's followers are supposed to be not simply beneficiaries but also agents. View quote
N.T. Wright
At no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, "Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven." It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation. View quote
N.T. Wright
To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry. View quote
N.T. Wright
Almost all the early Christian Fathers were opposed to the death penalty, even though it was of course standard practice across the ancient world. View quote
N.T. Wright
Death is a monster; death is horrible. View quote
N.T. Wright
The question of Heaven, the question of what happens after death, is one which a lot of people in our culture try to put off as long as they can, but sooner or later it suddenly swings round and looks them in the eye. View quote
N.T. Wright
One of the things I find depressing about some of the upper echelons of Anglicanism on both sides of the Atlantic is that it's sort of taken for granted that we all basically know what's in the Bible, and so we just glance at a few verses for devotional purposes and then get on to the real business. (N.T. Wright)
The imminent demise of the church has been predicted since the middle of the 18th century. This is the regular secular mantra if churchgoing declines. I could take you to plenty of churches that are full to bursting and new churches being built. View quote
N.T. Wright
Within orthodoxy, there is always a danger of faith collapsing into fear. View quote
N.T. Wright
I think future generations will say the late 20th century and the early 21st century was a time of great convulsions and upheavals. View quote
N.T. Wright
Of course there are people who think of 'heaven' as a kind of pie-in-the-sky dream of an afterlife to make the thought of dying less awful. No doubt that's a problem as old as the human race. View quote
N.T. Wright