How God Became King

Starred review from March 15, 2012
Except for Jesus' birth and death, most Western Christians have forgotten what the four canonical Gospels are about, Wright says in this book that follows his life of Christ, Simply Jesus (2011). To the question, What are all the sermons, parables, healings, miracles, controversies, dining, and traveling in the middle bits of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John about? Wright typically hears answers such as telling believers how to get to heaven or proving Jesus' divinity. Such rationales have their grains of truth, Wright grants, but they miss what his study of the New Testament has revealed to him as the four core themes of the canonical Gospels: that the gospel is, inextricably, the story of Israel, God's people; that the story of Jesus is the story of the God of Israel in person; that the gospel is the story of the renewal of God's people, not the founding of the Christian church; and that the gospel is the story of a clash of kingdoms, God's and Caesar's. Together the four confirm that the kingdom of God on earth began with Jesus. Properly so understood, they can mend the modern division between kingdom Christians, who emphasize social-gospel concerns, and cross Christians, who concentrate on soul saving. Wright has never been more eloquent and persuasive than in this book, which, with his NT translation, The Kingdom New Testament (2011), caps a long, productive theological career.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)