Bob

“But the bigger picture, throughout Paul’s letters, is about Jesus establishing his rule. His death is a vital and central part of how that is done. We cannot bypass it. We cannot downplay it. We cannot underemphasize it. But it makes the sense it makes within this picture: of the love of God, the covenant of God, the plan of God for the fulfillment of the whole of creation, not its abolition, and above all, the coronation of Jesus as the world’s rightful king and lord. Many times, when people preach the gospel and talk of Jesus dying in our place, you would never guess at any of these things. And you would be left clinging to a fragment of the biblical witness, supposing that the fragment belonged in a quite different story.”
― N.T. Wright, Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good

“The angry rioters in Thessalonica are not wrong when they say the Christians announce another king (Jesus) who is a rival to Caesar (Acts 17:5–8). When Peter tells Cornelius, the Roman centurion, that the Christian message is a gospel of peace about “Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all” (10:36) he is implicitly saying that it is Jesus who is in charge and the one who is truly Lord. Obviously, that means that Jesus’s peace is much more than personal peace with God. The implicit message is that Jesus is also the way to societal peace.”
― Ronald J. Sider, If Jesus Is Lord: Loving Our Enemies in an Age of Violence

“Jesus was not offering a teaching that could be compared with that of other teachers—though his teaching, as it stands, is truly remarkable. He was not offering a moral example, though if we want such a thing he remains outstanding. He was claiming to do things through which the world would be healed, transformed, rescued, and renewed. He was, in short, announcing good news, for Israel and the whole world.”
― N.T. Wright, Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good

“We know what the power of the world looks like. When push comes to shove, as it often does, it is the power of violence, using the threat of pain and death. It is, yes, the power of tanks and bombs, and also of guns and knives and whips and prisons and barbed wire and bulldozers. Weapons to destroy people’s lives; machines to destroy their homes. Cruelty in the home or at work. Malice and manipulation where there should be gentleness, kindness, and wisdom. Jesus’s power is of a totally different sort, as he explained to the Roman governor a few minutes before the governor sent him to his death—thereby proving the point. The kingdoms of the world run on violence. The kingdom of God, Jesus declared, runs on love. That is the good news.”
― N.T. Wright, Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good