The Task

From the first NT Wright book I ever read, given to me by my friend Elaine while I was at a teacher's conference. I remember mentioning to her that I was looking for a book to help me see and think about Jesus and his life and death and resurrection and how that tied into my everyday, walking around life in a way I never had before. She simply gave me The Challenge of Jesus and said "read this". The quote below comes from that book. And now I'm off to school, I hope to shut the door and put a wrap on this school year by the end of next week. Can. Not. Wait.

"Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion...The gospel of Jesus points us and indeed urges us to be at the leading edge of the whole culture, articulating in story and music and art and philosophy and education and poetry and politics and theology and even--heaven help us--Biblical studies, a worldview that will mount the historically-rooted Christian challenge to both modernity and postmodernity, leading the way...with joy and humor and gentleness and good judgment and true wisdom. I believe if we face the question, "if not now, then when?" if we are grasped by this vision we may also hear the question, "if not us, then who?" And if the gospel of Jesus is not the key to this task, then what is?"