Tom Wright > Quotes

“people who believe in the resurrection, in God making a whole new world in which everything will be set right at last, are unstoppably motivated to work for that new world in the present.”
― Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope: Original, provocative and practical

“But many people today assume that Christianity is one or more of these things – a religion, a moral system, a philosophy. In other words, they assume that Christianity is about advice. But it wasn’t and isn’t. Christianity is, simply, good news. It is the news that something has happened as a result of which the world is a different place.”
― Tom Wright, Simply Good News: Why The Gospel Is News And What Makes It Good

“When God looks at sin, what he sees is what a violin maker would see if the player were to use his lovely creation as a tennis racquet.”
― Tom Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion

“The gospels offer us not so much a different kind of human, but a different kind of God: a God who, having made humans in his own image, will most naturally express himself in and as that image-bearing creature; a God who, having made Israel to share and bear the pain and horror of the world, will most naturally express himself in and as that pain-bearing, horror-facing creature. This is perhaps the most difficult thing for us to keep in mind, though the gospels are inviting us to do so on every page.”
― Tom Wright, How God Became King: Getting to the heart of the Gospels

“And if we believe it, and pray, as he taught us, for God’s kingdom to come on earth as in heaven, there is no way we can rest content with major injustice in the world.”
― Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope: Original, provocative and practical

“Many people want to serve God,’ said the sign outside the church, ‘but only in an advisory capacity.”
― Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone

“(the joy of the church at every baptism, every bread breaking) is like an ever-increasing intimacy with a close friend, family member, or spouse.”
― Tom Wright, Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the World

“the authority of God exercised through scripture’.”
― Tom Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God

“There is appropriate complexity and appropriate simplicity. The more we learn, the more we discover that we humans are fantastically complicated creatures. Yet, on the other hand, human life is full of moments when we know that things are also very, very simple.”
― Tom Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense

“Precisely as Messiah, he offers God that representative faithfulness to the plan of salvation through which the plan can go ahead at last, Abraham can have a worldwide family (chapter 4), and the long entail of Adam’s sin and death can be undone (5.12–21) through his obedience, which as we know from 1.5 is for Paul very closely aligned with faith, faithfulness or fidelity.”
― Tom Wright, Paul: Fresh Perspectives: Fresh approach to Paul from a well-known scholar

“Instead, the nations will now flock to a different hill: to the hill called Calvary, outside the city walls, where the king of the Jews has died a cruel and shameful death. As a sign of what is to come (and looking back to the wise men of 2.1–12, the centurion of 8.5–13, and the Canaanite woman of 15.21–28), we see another centurion, standing guard at the foot of the cross, giving voice to the confession of faith that millions more would make, in shocked surprise at the sudden revelation of God’s truth where one would least expect it: ‘He really was God’s son!”
― Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 16-28

“I know our Lord told us', he said, 'to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. But, being busy men, some of us find it advisable to specialize.' No”
― Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: Romans Part 2: Chapters 9-16

“In the beginning’ – no Bible reader could see that phrase and not think at once of the start of Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ Whatever else John is going to tell us, he wants us to see his book as the story of God and the world, not just the story of one character in one place and time. This book is about the creator God acting in a new way within his much-loved creation. It is about the way in which the long story which began in Genesis reached the climax the creator had always intended.”
― Tom Wright, John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-10

“Ephesians 6.10–17        God’s Complete Armour”
― Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon

“All the much-boasted ‘freedom’ and ‘rights’ that some in Corinth were so keen on must give way before the needs of the work of the gospel. This will mean that many things the body wants to do, has a right (in theory) to do, and is ‘free’ to do, must be denied. This message, we may well imagine, was about as popular in Corinth as it is today, that is, not popular at all. Western culture still tells its own story as the story of developing freedoms, and any attempt to speak of discipline, self-denial or the necessary abandonment of ‘rights’ is shouted down as a return to ‘the dark ages’ or ‘the Middle Ages’ (not that those doing the shouting often have much idea what those periods of history were actually like).”
― Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians

“Many rest content to have Jesus around the place for particular ‘spiritual’ purposes, but continue to assign riches, power, glory and the rest to earthly forces and rulers.”
― Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone

“This passage seems to indicate that, though when someone isn't sorry there is no chance of full reconciliation, it is not only possible but actually commanded that we should rid ourselves of any desire for revenge.”
― Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: Romans Part 2: Chapters 9-16

“He shared in flesh and blood, and even death itself (verse 14). There is nothing we face, today or tomorrow or the next day, in which Jesus cannot sympathize, help and rescue us, and through which he cannot forge a way to God’s new world. HEBREWS 3.1–6 Jesus and Moses 1Well then, my brothers and sisters: you are God’s holy ones, and you share the”
― Tom Wright, Hebrews for Everyone

“The story the Bible tells – Old and New Testaments alike – is about God creating a world in which he intends to come and live with his human creatures.”
― Tom Wright, Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive into Paul's Greatest Letter

“a Jesus who is mind-blowing, dramatically powerful but also gentle and caring; a Jesus in and through whom we see his father, God the creator; a Jesus who has spoken, and still speaks, words which explain what is going on in the present, and warn of what will happen in the future (verse 19).”
― Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone

“There is a story told of C. S. Lewis, as a small boy – about six or seven, I think. One day he announced to his father, ‘Daddy, I have a prejudice against the French.’ ‘Why?’ asked his father, not unreasonably. ‘If I knew that,’ replied the precocious youngster triumphantly, ‘it wouldn’t be a prejudice.’ He was quite right, of course. The point about a prejudice is that it’s what you have when you are ‘pre-judging’ a case: making your mind up before you know the facts.”
― Tom Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part One: Chapters 1-12

“But Jesus is talking about God becoming king in order to explain the things he himself is doing. He isn’t pointing away from himself to God. He is pointing to God in order to explain his own actions. In case we miss the point, Mark rubs it in by having Jesus command the wind and the sea to be still, and they obey him:”
― Tom Wright, How God Became King: Getting to the heart of the Gospels

“(like all answers to do with Revelation, it remains partial and puzzling: this is a book designed to go on making you ponder and pray, not one designed to answer everything to your satisfaction)”
― Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone

“Before the Prince of Peace had learned to walk and talk, he was a homeless refugee with a price on his head.”
― Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone Part 1

“Believers, at this point, may not have words to speak their lament. But they may still have work to do, in healing, teaching, poor relief, campaigning and comforting. These things grow out of lament. As with the church in Antioch, we may not be able to say ‘Why’, but we may glimpse ‘What’: Who is at risk? What can be done? Who shall we send?”
― Tom Wright, God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and its Aftermath

“Here is the irony: Christians are supposed to stand out as distinctive, but when we do, and are mocked or criticized for it, we are tempted to mock and criticize right back – and then we are no longer distinctive, because we are behaving just like everyone else! Another victory for the hostile world: when Christians ‘give as good as they get’, repaying slander with slander, they are colluding with the surrounding world, just as surely as if they went along with immorality or financial corruption.”
― Tom Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone

“Genesis 15 describes the covenant God made with Abraham, promising him a great family, and the land as its inheritance; the critical move was that, when God made the first promise, Abraham believed it. That doesn’t mean that his faith earned his membership in God’s covenant; the promise was already made.”
― Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians

“There have been, down the years, plenty of lion-Christians. Yes, they think, Jesus died for us; but now God’s will is to be done in the lion-like fashion, through brute force and violence, to make the world come into line, to enforce God’s will. No, replies John; think of the lion, yes, but gaze at the lamb.”
― Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone

“Like all mainline Jews of his day, he believed that human evil emerged from idolatry. You become like what you worship: so, if you worship that which is not God, you become something other than the image-bearing human being you were meant and made to be.”
― Tom Wright, Revelation for Everyone

“Learning to believe what doesn’t at the moment feel true is an essential part of being a Christian,”
― Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon