Good summary of NT Wright's new book by Chaplain Mike

How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels   N.T. Wright, HarperOne / 2012

A key part of that work is lifting the Gospels to their rightful place of prominence in the Christian faith and message. A better grasp on the Gospel requires greater emphasis on and understanding of the Gospels.

 “We have all forgotten what the four gospels are about.”

In part two of the book, Wright uses the metaphor of a four-speaker sound system to make his points.

Speaker One : the culmination of Israel’s history.
Speaker Two : the coming of God to redeem his people
Speaker Three : the commencement of God’s renewed people and kingdom agenda in the world.
Speaker Four : the clash between God’s Kingdom and the kingdoms of this world.

In part three of How God Became King,Wright notes how improperly calibrating the “speakers” and failing to hear the message of the Gospels clearly has led to a division between Christians who emphasize the “kingdom” and those who stress the “cross.”He sums up his argument with three reflections:

“First, the evangelists insist that the kingdom truly was inaugurated by Jesus in his active public career, during the time between his baptism and the cross.

“Second, this kingdom is radically defined in relation to Jesus’s entire agenda of suffering, leading to the cross.”

“Third, the kingdom that Jesus inaugurated, that is implemented through his cross, is emphatically for this world.

He settled for giving us a chapter on how to better read the gospels and how to more thoughtfully say the creeds as Christ’s church.