Jake Walker

“is, rather, that we have a vocation to pursue a calling that is far richer than simply telling other people to repent and believe in Jesus, so that they can go to heaven, and trying to behave ourselves while we do it. Telling people to believe in Jesus is always good, of course, whatever the deficiencies of the way we do it, but such words will mean what they are meant to mean when they are heard within the context of the church’s overall royal and priestly vocation to be working for signs of new creation in the wider world, signs that the victory of the cross and the forgiveness of sins are a reality.”
― N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion

“will be painful. That is part of the point, not that we seek the pain, but that we seek to follow Jesus.”
― N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion

“And note carefully: this is not a matter of saying, “Now that you’re a Christian, you must follow the rules.” Rules matter, but they matter because they are one of the guardrails within the much larger vocation, to worship the true God and work for his kingdom. Every time you are tempted to sin, you are being asked to hand over to some alien force a little bit of your own God-given power, which is supposed to be exercised over yourself, your life, and the parts of the world you touch. You are being drawn into the sphere in which some “power” is at work, under the control of the satan. At that moment you are also being called (did you but know it) to exercise your true power as a genuine human being, to practice your vocation as part of the royal priesthood. Sin is a distraction from our true tasks, a distortion (at best) of our true vocation. It keeps the powers in power. Resisting it—especially when we have allowed habit to take us effortlessly in that direction—will be difficult, sometimes painful, sometimes profoundly depressing. That is part of taking up the cross.”
― N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion

“New creation can happen because the power of the satan, of Babylon, of Pharaoh has been broken. That is how the story works. That is what is different by six o’clock on the evening of Good Friday, though Jesus’s followers don’t realize it until the third day, which is the first day of the new week, the start of the new world.”
― N.T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion