“Jesus was not simply announcing God‘s judgment on his rebel people, warning, like Jeremiah that Israel and its leaders had so badly misread God‘s vocation that they were now rushing down a steep slope to destruction. Jesus was speaking and acting in such a way to go ahead of his people, to meet the powers of destruction in person, to take their full weight on himself, so as to make a way through, a way in which God‘s people could be renewed, could discover their vocation to be a light to the nations, could be rescued from their continuing slavery and exile.“
– N. T. Wright
“The Bible isn’t there simply to be an accurate reference point for people who want to look things up and be sure they’ve got them right. It is there to equipped God‘s people to carry Ford his purposes of new covenant and new creation. It is there to enable people to work for of justice, to sustain their spirituality as they do so, to create and enhance relationships at every level, and to produce the new creation, which will have about it, something of the beauty of God himself.“
– N. T. Wright
