Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Wright's Right: Really Knowing the Real Jesus

"It's not enough to say you feel something, even the presence of Jesus, very strongly. Lots of people feel all sorts of things very strongly. In order to know that you're not just making it up, not fooling yourself--and if you don't think that's a danger, your skeptical friends ought to tell you--you must be able to say that this Jesus, who we know in prayer, this Jesus we meet when we are ministering to the poorest of the poor, this Jesus we recognize in the breaking of the bread, this Jesus is the same Jesus who lived and taught and loved and died and rose again in the first century. We must believe and confess that he did indeed inaugurate God's kingdom, die to bring it about and rise again to launch the consequent new creation. We must know who Jesus himself actually was and is."

N.T. Wright, "Whence and Whither Historical Jesus Studies in the Life of the Church?" in  Jesus, Paul and the People of God: A Theological Dialogue with N. T. Wright, eds. Nicholas Perrin; Richard B. Hays, (p. 119) Kindle Edition.

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