How God Became King, by N.T. Wright

Chapter Five

1. In much of Western Christianity down through the years…we have been so concerned to let the gospels tell us that the story of Jesus is the story of God incarnate, that we have been unable to listen more carefully to the evangelists telling us which God they are talking about and what exactly it is that this God is now doing. We are quite happy to hear about the “God” of Western imagination, less ready to hear about the God of Israel.

- What’s the difference between the two?

2. This pattern – God intending to live among his people, being unable to because of their rebellion, but coming back in grace to do so at last – is, in a measure, the story of the whole Old Testament. Magnify that exodus story, project it onto the screen of hundreds of years of history, and you have the larger story.

- Where is the Old Testament’s pattern of sin and rebellion present and visible in today’s world?  

- Why does it continue?

3. At this point we have to be careful and once more get some critical distance from the main streams of our own recent traditions. It all depends on looking for the right thing.

- How does the gospel of Mark point us toward God’s coming to us?

4. Once we learn, from Mark, how we might read the story of Jesus as the story of Israel’s God returning at last, we may find it easier to recognize the ways in which Matthew and Luke are doing something very similar. One way and another, all three synoptic gospels are clear: in telling the story of Jesus they are consciously telling the story of how Israel’s God came back to his people, in judgment and mercy.

- How do you recall Wright making the case for this?

5. “The Word was God… and the Word became flesh.” John’s cards are on the table from the beginning. For him, the story of Jesus is the story of how God became human, how the creator became part of his creation. But, as we have already seen, this astonishing claim, rooted as it is in the echoing narrative of Genesis 1 in which humans were made to bear the divine image and likeness, is woven tightly together with the story of Israel.

-  What role does the Temple play in John’s Christology?