Tom Wright

Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall and Senior Editor at St Andrews. Official twitter site for announcements and speaking engagements.

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Why are some Bible prophecies so hard to interpret? @profntwright unpacks Isaiah 53, Jesus’ cryptic teaching, and the real heart of Christian wisdom. @mbird12 #BibleProphecy #FaithQuestions
https://t.co/p1zaaE47rg

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Why did Jesus speak in riddles? Is divorce ever OK? And does Isaiah 53 really predict Jesus? @profntwright & @mbird12 answer your toughest questions with depth and care. #AskNTWright #BibleQuestions #JesusTeachings
https://t.co/p1zaaE47rg

[Tom Wright @profntwright]

https://t.co/D4DO5o0FML

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How should Christians think about euthanasia and end-of-life care? Discover a thoughtful conversation on human dignity and the image of God. #Ethics #Euthanasia #ChristianHope @profntwright @mbird12
https://t.co/EnILgRhs2Y

[Tom Wright @profntwright]

Love is what will hold the church together when various pressures threaten to pull the Messiah’s body apart—when those with different gifts, or enthusiasm for a particular teacher, or a sense of their own rights and a disregard for other people’s conscience, or a failure to recognize those of different social standing as equal at the lord’s table, seem to want to go their own way. This chapter [1 Corinthians 13] has a claim, alongside chapter 15, to be considered the real heart of the letter. If the church can only grasp this, it will solve at least half the problems Paul has been grappling with. And yet even this exquisite chapter looks forward, particularly in the section just quoted, to the final discussion, which will concern the resurrection, the new world that God will make, and the continuity between the resurrection life and life here and now. The point of 13:8–13 is that the church must be working in the present on the things that will last into God’s future. Faith, hope and love will do this; prophecy, tongues and knowledge, so highly prized in Corinth, will not. They are merely signposts to the future; when you arrive, you no longer need signposts. Love, however, is not just a signpost. It is a foretaste of the ultimate reality. Love is not merely the Christian duty; it is the Christian destiny.

--The Resurrection of the Son of God

[Tom Wright @profntwright]

Paul here assumes three things. First, the human mind can in principle grasp the truth about the creator God. Second, the mind determines the behaviour. Third, the mind is closely linked to the heart: the reasoning faculty is linked to the driving centre of the personality, with its emotions and longings. From these he argues three further things. First, idolatry produces a darkening of the heart and a failure to think straight, an inversion of wisdom and folly. Second, this results in dehumanized and dehumanizing behaviour. Third, the creator allows this process to take its natural course: the ‘unfit’ decisions lead to an ‘unfit’ mind, a mind not fit for purpose, for the purpose of grasping the truth and living in the light of it. That is a core part of his diagnosis of the problem of the whole human race.
-Paul and the Faithfulness of God

[Tom Wright @profntwright]

We must, I would stress, beware of imagining that we can produce a new kind of salvation-history, reading divine intention and action off the all too ambiguous pages of even the best history. Just because we believe in divine providence we cannot copy the inspired writers of scripture and leap straight to a God's-eye view of events. Hegel saw history as inexorable progress; we beg to differ. Martin Luther saw the mediaeval period as the Babylonian Captivity of the church: well, perhaps. But perhaps not. As with the depths and ambiguities in our own lives, divine order is seldom perceived all at once, and perhaps that's just as well. Even St Paul, musing on the meaning of Onesimus's conversion, used that word, 'perhaps', to introduce his suggested interpretation (Philemon 15). Back to humility, patience, penitence and love.

-History and Eschatology: Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology

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Can Christians confront antisemitism in society - and in their own history? Tom Wright and Mike Bird call for honest repentance, dialogue, and solidarity with Jewish neighbours. #Antisemitism #ChurchHistory #NTWright
https://t.co/Y3OW3rnYrs

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What did Jesus mean by “my Father’s house”? @profntwright unpacks heaven, eternal rewards, and the real Christian hope. @mbird12 #Heaven #JesusWords
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[Ed Stetzer @edstetzer]

We often think of heaven as a distant place we go to after we die. But in God's Homecoming, N.T. Wright challenges that assumption.

Wright argues that, in the Bible, heaven and earth are not meant to be completely separate realms. Rather, heaven is God's sphere of reality and earth is ours. From the beginning, God's intention was for the two to work together, with God's presence, purposes, and rule fully expressed in creation. The story of Scripture is not about escaping earth for heaven, but about God's plan to bring heaven and earth together in the renewal of all things.

In this conversation, Wright explains how that biblical vision changes the way we think about our daily lives, our churches, and our mission in the world today.

Watch the clip and listen to the full episode of the Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

-from the @WycliffeHall chapel at Oxford University

[Tom Wright @profntwright]

Eschatology, rightly understood, is not antithetical to ethics. It generates them. When the kingdom comes, the will of YHWH will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
-Jesus and the Victory of God

[Tom Wright @profntwright]

Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, climaxing in his actions in the Temple and the upper room, and undertaken in full recognition of the likely consequences, was intended to function like Ezekiel lying on his side or Jeremiah smashing his pot. The prophet’s action embodied the reality. Jesus went to Jerusalem in order to embody the third and last element of the coming of the kingdom. He was not content to announce that YHWH was returning to Zion. He intended to enact, symbolize and personify that climactic event.
-Jesus and the Victory of God

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How do we make sense of God’s wrath and violence in the Bible? @profntwright & @mbird12 tackle the tough questions with honesty and hope. #AskNTWright #BibleQuestions #DivineWrath
https://t.co/4kOP42SMNh

[Tom Wright @profntwright]

Once we see sacramental grace at the intersection of the homecoming of God in Jesus and the homecoming of God in the spirit, it isn't the baptism that might have failed. What may be lacking is the theological understanding, fellowship, and encouragement. I suspect that our cultural and philosophical climates have made it more difficult to see that grace confers responsibility, a responsibility that includes the challenge to seek the further infilling and enabling of the spirit.
-God's Homecoming

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How do we read the Bible beyond our assumptions? @profntwright & @mbird12 talk marriage, biblical interpretation, and Tom’s next big book. #NTWrightPodcast #BiblicalLens #ChristianBooks
https://t.co/S02XDBfRNg

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Did the church leave books out of the Bible? And should Christians support a Third Temple? @profntwright & @mbird12 dig into canon, prophecy, and unity. #AskNTWright #BibleQuestions #ThirdTemple
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Are Catholics saved if they reject justification by faith alone? @profntwright & @mbird12 explore faith, salvation, and what really unites Christians. #NTWrightPodcast #Justification #ChristianUnity
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[Tom Wright @profntwright]

Scripture is, at its heart, the great story that we sing in order not just to learn it with our heads but to become part of it through and through, the story that in turn becomes part of us.
-The Case for the Psalms

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Is marriage more than marriage? @profntwright shares how it points to heaven and earth coming together - and what’s next on his writing list! @mbird12 #AskNTWright #MarriageAndFaith #BibleLens
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Are Oneness Pentecostals outside historic Christianity if they don’t believe in the Trinity? @profntwright & @mbird12 dig into this and more! #NTWrightPodcast #TrinityDebate #ChurchUnity
https://t.co/DiSJlcKY4Q