Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense

254 Pages·2006·0.73 MB·English

by  N.T. Wright

Simply
Christian
Why Chris tianity
Makes Sense
H
N. T. Wright
For Joseph and Ella-Ruth
Contents
Introduction v
Part One
Echoes of a Voice
1. Putting the World to Rights 3
2. The Hidden Spring 17
3. Made for Each Other 29
4. For the Beauty of the Earth 39
Part Two
Staring at the Sun
5. God 55
6. Israel 71
7. Jesus and the Coming of God’s Kingdom 91
8. Jesus: Rescue and Renewal 105
9. God’s Breath of Life 121
10. Living by the Spirit 131
iv Contents
Part Three
Reflecting the Image
11. Worship 143
12. Prayer 159
13. The Book God Breathed 173
14. The Story and the Task 185
15. Believing and Belonging 199
16. New Creation, Starting Now 217
Afterword: To Take Things Further . . . 239
About the Author
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
There are two sorts of traveler. The fi rst sets off in the general
direction of the destination and is quite happy to fi gure things
out on the way, to read the signposts, ask directions, and muddle
through. The second wants to know in advance what the road will
be like, where it changes from a country road to a busy multilane
highway, how long it will take to complete the different sections,
and so on.
Concertgoers are often like that, too. Some listeners prefer to
allow the music to make its own impact, carrying them along from
movement to movement without their knowing where it will go
next. Others fi nd greater enjoyment by reading a program note in
advance so that they can anticipate what is to come and have a men-
tal picture of the whole while listening to the parts as they unfold.
People who read books divide into more or less the same types.
The fi rst type can probably skip this introduction and go straight
to the fi rst chapter. The second type may like to know in advance
more or less where we’re going, how the music is shaped. This
introduction is written for them.
My aim has been to describe what Christ iani ty is all about, both
to commend it to those outside the faith and to explain it to those
inside. This is a massive task, and I make no pretense of having cov-
ered everything, or even of having faced all the questions some
might expect in a book of this sort. What I have tried to do is to
give the subject a particular shape, resulting in the book’s three-
fold structure.
vi Introduction
First, I have explored four areas which in today’s world can be
interpreted as “echoes of a voice”: the longing for justice, the quest
for spirituality, the hunger for relationships, and the delight in beauty.
Each of these, I suggest, points beyond itself, though without in itself
enabling us to deduce very much about the world except that it is a
strange and exciting place. Part One of the book, with its four chap-
ters, functions rather like the opening movement of a symphony:
once you have heard these themes, the trick is to hold them in your
mind while listening to the second and third movements, whose
rather different tunes will gradually meet up with the opening ones,
producing “echoes” of a different sort. The fi rst part, in other words,
raises questions which are then, bit by bit and not always directly,
addressed and at least partially answered in what follows. I only ask
that the reader should be patient, as the second and third parts unfold,
in waiting to see how the book eventually ties itself together.
Part Two lays out the central Chris tian belief about God. Chris-
tians believe that there is one true and living God, and that this
God, revealed in action in Jesus, is the God who called the Jew-
ishpeople to be his agents in setting forward his plan to rescue and
reshape his creation. We therefore spend a whole chapter (Chap-
ter Six) in looking at the story and hopes of ancient Israel, before
spending two chapters on Jesus and two on the Spirit. Gradual-
ly, as this part unfolds, we discover that the voice whose echoes
we began to listen for in the fi rst part becomes recognizable, as we
refl ect on the creator God who longs to put his world to rights; on
the human being called Jesus who announced God’s kingdom, died
on a cross, and rose again; and on the Spirit, who blows like a pow-
erful wind through the world and through human lives.
This leads naturally into Part Three, where I describe what it
looks like in practice to follow this Jesus, to be energized by this
Spirit, and above all to advance the plan of this creator God. Wor-
ship (including sacramental worship), prayer, and scripture launch
us into thinking about “the church,” seen not as a building and
not even so much as an institution, but as the company of all
Introduction vii
those who believe in the God we see in Jesus and who are strug-
gling to follow him.
In particular, I explore the question of what the church is there
for. The point of following Jesus isn’t simply so that we can be sure
of going to a better place than this after we die. Our future beyond
death is enormously important, but the nature of the Chris tian
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 in Jesus and of
which Jesus’s followers are supposed to be not simply benefi ciaries
but also agents. This provides a new way of coming at various top-
ics, not least prayer and Christ ian behavior. And this in turn enables
us, as the book reaches its conclusion, to fi nd the “echoes” of the
fi rst part coming back again, not now as hints of a God we might
learn to know for ourselves, but as key elements of the Chris tian
calling to work for his kingdom within the world.
This has been an exciting book to write, not least because it
is quite personal; but in those terms it is, as it were, back to front.
I have been a worshipping, praying, and Bible-reading Chris tian
(often muddled and getting things wrong, but hanging in there) all
my life, so that in a sense Part Three is where I began. I have spent
much of my professional life studying Jesus historically and theo-
logically, as well as trying to follow him personally, and Part Two
embodies that multilayered quest. But, as I have done so, I have
found that the issues in Part One have become more and more
insistent and important. To take the fi rst and most obvious exam-
ple, the more I’ve learned about Jesus, the more I’ve discovered
about God’s passion to put the world to rights. And at that point I
have also discovered that the things to which my study of Jesus has
pointed me—the “echoes of a voice” in Part One—are among the
things which the postmodern, post-Christ ian, and now increasing-
ly postsecular world cannot escape as questions—strange signposts
pointing beyond the landscape of our contemporary culture and
out into the unknown.
viii Introduction
I haven’t attempted in these pages to differentiate between the
many different varieties of Chris tianity, but have tried to speak of
that which is, at their best, common to all. The book isn’t “Angli-
can,” “Catholic,” “Protestant,” or “Orthodox,” but simply Chris tian.
I have also attempted to keep what must be said as straightforward
and clear as I can, so that those coming to the subject for the fi rst
time won’t get stuck in a jungle of technical terms. Being a Chris-
tian in today’s world is, of course, anything but simple. But there is
a time for trying to say, as simply as possible, what it’s all about, and
this seems to me that sort of a time.
Between writing the fi rst draft of this book and preparing it for
publication, I had the joy of welcoming my fi rst two grandchildren
into the world. I dedicate the book to Joseph and Ella-Ruth, with
the hope and prayer that they and their generation may come to
hear the voice whose echoes we trace in the fi rst part, to know the
Jesus we meet in the second, and to live in and for the new creation
we explore in the third.