N.T. Wright - Jesus: King of the World

Jesus King of theWorld
Interviews With N.T. Wright

Copyright 2016 Grace CommunionInternational

Ab out thePublisher

Grace CommunionSeminary

Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

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This is a transcript of interviewsconducted as part of the Youre Included series, sponsoredby Grace Communion International. We have more than 130 interviewsavailable. You may watch them or download video or audio athttps://learn.gcs.edu/course/view.php?id=58. Donations in supportof this ministry may be made athttps://www.gci.org/online-giving/.

Grace Communion International is inbroad agreement with the theology of the people we interview, butGCI does not endorse every detail of every interview. The opinionsexpressed are those of the interviewees. We thank them for theirtime and their willingness to participate.

Please understand that when peoplespeak, thoughts are not always put into well-formed sentences, andsometimes thoughts are not completed. In the following transcripts,we have removed occasional words that did not seem to contributeany meaning to the sentence. In some cases we could not figure outwhat word was intended. We apologize for any transcription errors,and if you notice any, we welcome your assistance.

Our guest in these interviews isN.T. Wright, Chair of New Testament and Early Christianityat the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews,Scotland. He received a PhD from Oxford in 1980. He is a prolificauthor; for a regularly updated list, seehttp://www.amazon.com/N.-T.-Wright/e/B001H6NEG8. For sermons,articles and other publications, see www.ntwrightpage.com/ .His books include:

Acts for Everyone

Advent for Everyone: Luke: A DailyDevotional

Advent for Everyone: Matthew: ADaily Devotional

After You Believe: Why ChristianCharacter Matters

Bringing the Church to theWorld

Broken Signposts: How ChristianityMakes Sense of the World

The Case for the Psalms: Why TheyAre Essential

The Challenge of Easter

The Challenge of Jesus:Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is

Christians at the Cross: FindingHope in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus

The Climax of the Covenant: Christand the Law in Pauline Theology

Creation, Power andTruth

The Crown and the Fire:Meditations on the Cross and the Life of the Spirit

The Day the Revolution Began:Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus Crucifixion

Early Christian Letters forEveryone: James, Peter, John, and Judah

The Epistles of Paul to theColossians and to Philemon: An Introduction andCommentary

Evil and the Justice ofGod

Following Jesus: BiblicalReflections on Discipleship

For All Gods Worth: True Worshipand the Calling of the Church

For All the Saints?: Rememberingthe Christian Departed

Galatians Commentaries forChristian Formation

God and the Pandemic: A ChristianReflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath

God in Public

Hebrews for Everyone

History and Eschatology: Jesus andthe Promise of Natural Theology

How God Became King: the ForgottenStory of the Gospels

Interpreting Jesus: Essays on theGospels

Interpreting Paul: Essays on theApostle and His Letters

Interpreting Scripture: Essays onthe Bible and Hermeneutics

Jesus and the Victory ofGod

John for Everyone

Judas and the Gospel of Jesus:Have We Missed the Truth About Christianity?

Justification: Gods Plan andPauls Vision

The Kingdom New Testament: AContemporary Translation

Lent for Everyone: Luke: YearC

Lent for Everyone: Mark, Year B: ADaily Devotional

Lent for Everyone: Matthew. YearA

Living Faith: Exploring theEssentials of Christianity

The Lord and His Prayer

Luke for Everyone

Mark for Everyone

Matthew for Everyone

The Meal Jesus Gave Us:Understanding Holy Communion

The Millennium Myth

The New Testament and the Peopleof God

The NewTestament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature,and Theology of the First Christians (with Michael F. Bird)

New Testament Prayer forEveryone

On Earth as in Heaven: DailyWisdom for Twenty-First Century Christians

The OriginalJesus: The Life and Vision of a Revolutionary (co-author)

Paul: A Biography

Paul and His RecentInterpreters

Paul and theFaithfulness of God (2volumes)

The Paul Debate: CriticalQuestions for Understanding the Apostle

Paul: In FreshPerspective

Paul for Everyone: Galatians andThessalonians

Paul for Everyone:Romans

Paul for Everyone: The PrisonLetters: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, andPhilemon

Paul for Everyone: 1Corinthians

Paul for Everyone: 2Corinthians

Paul for Everyone: The PastoralLetters: 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus

Pauline Perspectives: Essays onPaul 1978-2013

Quiet Moments

Reflecting the Glory: Meditationsfor Living Christs Life in the World

The Resurrection of the Son ofGod

Revelation for Everyone

Romans.In The New InterpretersBible, volume 10

Scripture and the Authority ofGod: How to Read the Bible Today

The Scriptures, the Cross and thePower of God: Reflections for Holy Week

Simply Christian: Why ChristianityMakes Sense

Simply Good News: Why the Gospelis News and What Makes It Good

Simply Jesus: A New Vision of WhoHe Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters

Small Faith, Great God: BiblicalFaith for Todays Christians

Spiritual and Religious

Surprised By Hope: RethinkingHeaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

Surprised by Scripture: EngagingContemporary Issues

Twelve Months of Sundays:Reflections on Bible Readings, Year A

Twelve Months of Sundays:Reflections on Bible Readings, Year B

Twelve Months of Sundays:Reflections on Bible Readings, Year C

Virtue Reborn

The Way of the Lord: ChristianPilgrimage Today

What Saint Paul Really Said: WasPaul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity?

Who Was Jesus?

The interviewer was Gary W.Deddo (PhD, University of Aberdeen, 1991), who was thenpresident of Grace Communion Seminary.

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Gary Deddo: Professor Wright, thank you for taking sometime out here at Saint Andrews [Scotland] this morning and joiningus for the Youre Included interview series of GraceCommunion International.

NTW: Good to be withyou.

GD: I like to spend some timeconsidering themes that you address in your recent publication,How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospel. Atthe outset of your book, you tell the reader that you think theresa serious problem at the heart of the Christian faith and practiceas youve experienced it. You say your increasing impression isthat most of the Western Christian tradition has forgotten what thefour Gospels are really all about. Thats provocative. Could youelaborate on that statement and tell us what we haveforgotten?

NTW: Ive often wondered sincewriting that whether I was overstating it, but looking around andlistening and attending church and talking with friends, I want tostick to it. At the heart of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is thisenormous claim that something actually happened there at thebeginning of the first century through the work and death andresurrection of Jesus, something happened which has transformed theworld.

We have tended to slide that downhillinto being Jesus simply providing a system of salvation whichenables us later to leave the world or to escape the world in someway, either by our spirituality in the present or by a salvationwhich will take us entirely away from the world in the future.Whereas the four Gospel writers, living as they did within theworld of second-temple Judaism, believed that through Jesus, theone God of Israel, the creator of the world, had acted to reclaimthe world, to redeem the world, to rescue the world, not to enablepeople to leave it behind.