Simply Jesus

Simply Jesus

I first heard of the scholar N.T. Wright one day, around a year ago, on some news program where the English Bishop was explaining to the moderator what the true Christian meaning of the season of Easter was.  I was impressed by his knowledge, but more importantly, his calm mannerisms that were so incredibly non threatening.  I immediately Googled the man (or, more appropriately, Amazon-ed the man) to read about some of his published works.  Well, a bit later than I intended, I finally got around to reading one of his books.

Although I’ve been a Christian for more than a quarter of a century, I don’t read that many Christian books.  Too many of them fall into the “self-help” style of writing, and I’m just not a fan that whole genre.  Then, sadly many of the Christian books are a bit too right-brained for my tastes, and I tend to find the whole in-your-face evangelism to be a bit too malodorous, and can’t help but wonder if these authors are truly trying to preach to anyone other than to the faithful (a former Pastor of mine referred to this as “Spiritual B.O.”  That is so good!).  So apart from C.S. Lewis and the recently deceased Chuck Colson (whose book “Loving God” is an absolute must), I simply haven’t read many works on the subject matter as of late.

Overall, I must say I enjoyed this book.  I think this would be a great book for someone that is new to the faith, or even someone who claims to have no faith.  Not that this book serves as a great evangelism tool, but one of the best recurring themes of this book that deals with the historical Jesus is simply this:

If Jesus Christ was and is the Son of God, then the time and place where he was born and served in his ministry was the absolute best (i.e. worst) time and place possible. 

The vast majority of this work deals with Jesus in his day, what he was saying, and what it truly meant - both then and  now.  Wright digs in deep, giving the reader an excellent perspective of what it was like living in Jesus’ place and time over two millennia ago.  He alludes often to the “Perfect Storm” of the many nations, dictators, and authoritarian figures that led the Jewish nation of Israel through tumultuous times in Jesus’ day, and “sets up the scene” quite nicely for the appearance of the Son of God.

Of course, those who know their church history are probably familiar with many of the points the author makes.  He refers many times to the Jewish nation desiring their messiah to reign on his throne immediately and to impart God’s wrath on the wicked that had been torturing them forever.  The folks back in the day weren’t too crazy about the idea of a meek servant riding into Jerusalem on a donkey talking about his forthcoming crucifixion.  Wright also spends a ton of time expounding on the meaning of God’s kingdom “in heaven and on earth” that Jesus came to establish.  It definitely challenged how I interpreted a lot of things.  In other words, Christians should not only be focused on the death and resurrection of Christ, but also on the things he did in his ministry beyond his teachable parables etc.

To be honest, sometimes it seems like Wright wanders a bit from chapter to chapter.  I had a hard time finding how consecutive chapters actually connected in terms of thought process.  The majority of the time, though, the writing style was so rich that it was easy to become immersed within the writing regardless of trying to keep one’s thinking linear.  

It was also refreshing to hear N.T. Wright challenge a lot of the status quo with much of the contemporary Christian thought process.  Many evangelical churches seem to be intertwined into certain ways of thinking without ever seriously asking themselves why and how they interpret certain scriptures in a way that they do.  For example, Wright spends a little bit of time in his work talking about Eschatology, and he boldly states that the idea of “The Rapture” as most Christians understand it, isn’t at all what they think - and there will be no literal twinkling of an eye where believers will be gone from the earth and up to the sky.  I also found it rather odd that when discussing Satan, he never refers to Satan as ‘Satan’ but rather ‘the satan’.

He definitely aroused my interest in many of the discussions on various scriptures, and I’m sure that I’ll read some of his other works in the foreseeable future.  I would recommend this book not only for Christians, but also for those who claim to “hate religion”.   It would be nice for these misguided individuals on the fringe to at least understand who the real Jesus was when he walked the earth, since most of them obviously do not (I remember when the movie “The Passion of the Christ” came out - it astounded me how many people that were critical of the movie, just never “got it”, meaning understanding the whole point of the crucifixion).   Sadly, the same can be said for many believers as well, I guess, so maybe this book should be recommended for them as well.