__'It has been slowly dawning on me over many years that there is a fundamental problem deep at the heart of Christian faith and practice as I have known them . . . we have all forgotten what the four Gospels are about.'__

With that surprising assertion, Tom Wright launches this ground-breaking work in which he helps us to see the gospel story in radically a new light, and to acknowledge that, for many generations, the Church has been avoiding its full impact and holding back from proclaiming its full meaning.

'Classic Wright: clear, accessible, robust, engaging and challenging.'  
__Paula Gooder in Third Way__

'Scholarly, accessible, insightful and provocative.'  
__Christianity__

'Wright argues compellingly that the twin themes of kingdom and cross are inseparably linked. . . This is a much-needed reorientation. The book makes its case for 'rethinking' cogently and deserves widespread attention.'  
__Theology__

Tom Wright lays out several of his academic theses in an accessible way. It encourages Christians to re-examine the role and purpose of the gospels

Tom Wright

Cover

Title page

Imprint

Dedication

Preface

Part one: the empty clock

1. The Missing Middle

2. The Opposite Problem All Body, No Cloak

3. The Inadequate Answers

Part two: adjusting the volume

4. The Story of Israel

5. The Story of Jesus as the Story of Israel's God

6. The Launching of God's Renewed People

7. The Clash of the Kingdoms

Part three: the kingdom and the cross

8. Where We Get Stuck Enlightenment, Power and Empire

9. Kingdom and Cross in Four Dimensions

10. Kingdom and Cross The Remaking of Meanings

Part four: creed, canon and gospel

11. How to Celebrate God's Story

Scripture search items

Wright, Tom

It has been slowly dawning on me over many years that there is a fundamental problem deep at the heart of Christian faith and practice as I have known it... we have all forgotten what the four gospels are about.' With this surprising and radical assertion, highly respected theologian and former Bishop of Durham Tom Wright launches a groundbreaking work sure to shake up and revolutionise much Christian thinking on the very heart and meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Tom Wright leads us, intelligently and graciously to seeing the new reality of the gospel story; one that is so explosive that the church in many generations has found it too much to take and so has watered it down rather than allowing its full impact to be felt.

'It has been slowly dawning on me over many years that there is a fundamental problem deep at the heart of Christian faith and practice as I have known it - we have all forgotten what the four gospels are about.' With this surprising and radical assertion, highly respected theologian Tom Wright launches a ground-breaking work.

In this book by Tom Wright (NT Wright) he lays out several of his academic theses in an accessible way. It encourages Christians to re-examine the role and purpose of the gospels. For a full review see [Book Review: How God became King](https://www.eden.co.uk/blog/book-review-how-god-became-king-tom-wright-p1884 "How God Became King - Book review by Ian Matthews").

__Tom Wright__: Perhaps God has so ordered it in such a way that every generation has to grow up. Because if I could just get the answers right, give them to you, all you would have to do is go look them up and you wouldn’t grow up yourself.

__Micky Marvin__: I’m Micky Marvin from Harper One taking with Tom Wright who has a new book called ‘God Became King’.

Tom you’ve have had a fascinating history of spending many years in University and then many years in the church. Most recently as a Bishop. I was really intrigued in ‘How God became King’ in your argument that not only have the church’s teachings been criticised by sceptical scholars, even in our defense by conservative scholars defending tradition we’ve distorted how we tell the story of Jesus and how we read the Bible.

Um. can you explain how that works.

__TW__: Yeah. I think most Christians have actually, in the western world, been puzzled without evening know that they are puzzled as to what the Gospels are really there for. The way that the modern age is asking its questions over the last 200 years has driven wedges between different bits of the New Testament which we really ought now to be able to say “its time to put that lot back together again” - and when you do that its explosive!

A lot of Jesus parables are told precisely to say “No! The Kingdom isn’t what you thought it was!”. The story the Gospels tell, which is how God became King, is one that I think the whole western world has not only not wanted to hear, it has forgotten that the story was even out there in the first place.

We missed the right point

__MM__: What part of Jesus of our story about Jesus are wrong?

__TW__: For a great many christians in the western tradition the divinity of Jesus has been a major feature of their whole world view. “Look here in these miracles, wow, this shows Jesus must have been the son of God.”

People then say, “Well wait a minute, when Matthew writes his miracle stories Matthew knows perfectly well this was the sort of the thing that Elisha and Elijah did. Does that mean Elisha and Elijah were the son of God?”. Not in the same unique sense

Then theres the transfiguration, “but hang on, Moses and Elijah again, they are transfigured with Jesus so does that make them a second person of the trinity?”. Of course not!

And it is that whole framework that I think, if Jesus were to see, he would say “Sorry guys, you’ve just missed the point. I’m talking about God becoming King and that means God is running the show and however you’re going to do your politics in society. If you’re a christian you ought to do in such a way as to find a system which acknowledge the sovereignty of God even though then how that works out is going to be very tricky.”

The Good Book Stall

Tom Wright’s central thesis in this wonderfully accessible yet highly authoritative work is that the church has for centuries been distracted from reflecting on the reality of Christ’s life by Pauline theology on the one hand and the Christian creeds on the other. We know why Jesus was born, why he died and why he rose from the dead, but none of this theology answers why Jesus’ actual life comprised the events that it did. ‘We have all forgotten what the four gospels are about’, Wright claims.   
As someone brought up on the Social Gospel with its emphasis on Jesus’ ushering in of the Kingdom of God through his life’s actions, I am not quite convinced that Wright’s assertion reflects the church as a whole. However, Wright’s thesis may reflect a welcome development in evangelical thinking, in which a dependence on faith rooted in doctrinal agreement is replaced by one more rooted in social engagement. Perhaps in this book Wright is inviting us to observe his own theological journey slowly evolving?  
At the heart of Wright’s argument is one that is – in broad terms – very familiar to readers of more liberal theologians like Crossan, Wink or even Spong: the story of Jesus is ‘the story of the kingdom of God clashing with the kingdom of Caesar’ to quote Wright (p127). Wright’s juxtaposition of kingdom and cross is arguably not new, but it is refreshing to read it from a leading and very influential evangelical theologian.  
Tom Wright is a remarkable thinker and writer whose prodigious output is shaping a generation of Christians. His many admirers will undoubtedly gulp down this book; those more hesitant about him would do well to do the same.

How God Became King

Getting to the Heart of the Gospels

Navigation Bar

Header Default

Download the Christian360 App to read eBooks and listen to Audiobooks bought at Christian360

How God Became King

Description

Need support?

Customer reviews

Download the App

Download the App