N. T. Wright - The Challenge of Jesus

Chpt. 1, p. 31

This is not a task simply for a few backroom specialists. If church leaders themselves spent more time studying and teaching Jesus and the Gospels, a good many of the other things we worry about in day-to-day church life would be seen in their proper light. It has far too often been assumed that church leaders stand above the nitty-gritty of biblical and theological study; they have all done that, we implicitly suppose, before they come to office, and now they simply have to work out the “implications.” They then find themselves spending countless hours at their desks running the church as a business, raising money or working at dozens of other tasks, rather than poring of their foundation documents and inquiring ever more closely about the Jesus whom they are supposed to be following and teaching others to follow.

Chpt. 2, p. 37

[Three options open to the Jesus who had their geographical deliverance, but not their political or theological deliverance:

1. Quietest: Separate/hide and wait on God, like the dead sea scroll writers at Qumran
2. Compromiser: Suck it up and prosper, like Herod or Matthew/Levi
3. Zealot: Fight, like Simon Zelotes

Jesus was not any of those.
] He went back to Israel's scriptures and found there another kingdom-model...

p. 39

If His way of bringing the kingdom was the right way, then Herod's way was not, the Qumran way was not, and the Zealot way was not. And the Pharisees, who in Jesus’ day were mostly inclined to the Zealot end of the spectrum, were bound to regard Him as a dangerous compromise.

Three Main Thrusts of Jesus” Kingdom-Message:

1. The End of Exile
2. The Call of a Renewed People
3. The Warning of Disaster and Vindication to Come

p. 40

Isaiah 6:9-10 is quoted in all four gospels and Acts:
Matt 13:14-15
Mark 4:12
Luke 8:10
John 12:40 Acts 28:26-27