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Christopher J.H. Wright QUOTES

Christopher J.H. Wright QUOTES

1 " the whole Bible is itself a missional phenomenon. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God. The Bible renders to us the story of God's mission through God's people in their engagement with God's world for the sake of the whole of God's creation. The Bible is the drama of this God of purpose engaged in the mission of achieving that purpose universally, embracing past, present and future, Israel and the nations, "life, the universe and everything," and with its centre, focus, climax, and completion in Jesus Christ. Mission is not just one of a list of things that the Bible happens to talk about, only a bit more urgently than some. Mission is, in that much-abused phrase, "what it's all about. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright

2 " It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission – God’s mission. Chris Wright "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission

3 " our mission is nothing less (or more) than participating with God in this grand story until he brings it to its guaranteed climax. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission

4 " for God, doing justice means particularly attending to the needs of the weak and poor, it makes us question whether the traditional understanding of justice as ‘strict impartiality’ is really at all appropriate in the biblical context. On the contrary, it is so clear that the LORD is especially attentive to the needs of the marginalized (see Deut. 10:18–19) that it would seem to be the very nature of justice, on God’s terms, for humans also to have such a prioritized concern. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

5 " Failure to honour God in the material realm cannot be compensated for by religiosity in the spiritual realm. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

6 " The jubilee then is about restoring to people the capacity to participate in the economic life of the community for their own viability and society's benefit. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative

7 " There should be no theology that does not relate to the mission of the church – either by being generated out of the church’s mission or by inspiring and shaping it. And there should be no mission of the church carried on without deep theological roots in the soil of the Bible. No theology without missional impact; no mission without theological foundations. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission

8 " Mission arises from the heart of God himself, and is communicated from his heart to ours. Mission is the global outreach of the global people of a global God. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission

9 " Lament is missional because it keeps the world before God, and it draws God into the world – with the longing that God should act, and the faith that he ultimately will. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Message of Lamentations

10 " Evil and sin weave their way into every aspect of God’s creation and every dimension of human personhood and life on earth. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission

11 " It is well known that great art, great music and great literature can emerge out of great pain. This does not lessen the reality of the suffering of the artist, composer or writer, but it points to something creative and redemptive in the human person, made in the image of God, which can bring forth a thing of beauty in the midst of surrounding ugliness, brutality and evil. Nowhere is this more true than in the book of Lamentations. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Message of Lamentations

12 " If our mission is to share good news, we need to be good news people. If we preach transformation, we need to show some evidence of what transformation looks like. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission

13 " The power imbalance between male and female, the fear between God and humans and the enmity between humans and nature, are all described in Genesis 2 and 3 as originating not in the nature of things as God intended them to be, but rather in the collusion of Adam, Eve and the serpent, who together deny the goodness and sufficiency of the garden and distrust the good intentions of the creator. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

14 " Mission is not ours; mission is God's. Certainly, the mission of God is the prior reality out of which flows any mission that we get involved in. Or, as has been nicely put, it is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world but that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission-God's mission.14 "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative

15 " This feature of Israelite law stands in sharp contrast to many ancient law codes where certain thefts by certain people were punishable by death. Indeed, it contrasts with British law until fairly recent times (people were hanged for sheep-stealing in Britain until the nineteenth century). On the other hand, as mentioned above, theft of a person for gain (kidnapping) was a capital offence in Israel (21:16; Deut. 24:7). Stealing a human life was different from stealing property. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

16 " The reality is, of course, as soon as you think seriously about it, that the mission field is everywhere, including your own street – wherever there is ignorance or rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission

17 " the dangerous result is that theology proceeds without missional input or output, while mission proceeds without theological guidance or evaluation. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission

18 " Spiritual warfare is not about naming territorial spirits, claiming the ground or binding demons. It is all about the gospel. It is to live a gospel life, to preserve gospel unity and to proclaim gospel truth. It is to do this in the face of a hostile world, a deceptive enemy and our own sinful natures. And it is to pray to a sovereign God for gospel opportunities. Advance comes through godliness, unity, proclamation and prayer. Timothy Chester, on Ephesians 621 "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission

19 " It does appear, then, that what you find in the landscape of the Old Testament when you ‘get there’ very much depends on whom you take with you and through whose eyes you view it. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

20 " Yahweh intends that Israel be a nation of sisters and brothers in which there will be no more poor (cf. Deut. 15:4). This in itself makes clear that, according to the bible, the poor of Egypt are to become, through the Exodus, a kind of divinely-willed contrast-society . . . In fact, the new society that Yahweh creates out of the poor Hebrews through the Exodus is not only in contrast to the Egyptian society they have left behind, but beyond that it is in contrast to all other existing societies in their world [it is thus a task directed not just at Israel’s good but to the good of all humanity]. "

― Christopher J.H. Wright , Old Testament Ethics for the People of God