N.T. Wright Quotes

I just finished reading The Challenge of Jesus by N.T. Wright and my head is still spinning with thoughts and ideas Wright presents about the radical challenge of Jesus. As a lover and student of history/historical research, I appreciated how Wright placed Jesus in his own historical, cultural setting, beginning his presentation of him there. I will write more on my thoughts of the book later, but I wanted to post a couple of meaningful quotes:

...the church, the followers of Jesus Christ, live in the interval between Easter and the final great consummation. Let's make no mistake either way. The reason the early Christians were so joyful was because they knew themselves to be living not so much in the last days, though that was true too, as in the first days--the opening days of God's new creation. (p.178)

And this one spoke to me as a Pastor and Hospice Chaplain, The Christian vocation is to be in prayer, in the Spirit, at the place where the world is in pain, and as we embrace that vocation, we discover it to be the way of following Christ, shaped according to his messianic vocation to the cross, with arms outstretched, holding on simultaneously to the pain of the world and to the love of God.(p.190)

More later . . .