Evil then consists not in being created but in the rebellious idolatry by which humans worship and honor elements of the natural world rather than the God who made them. The result is that the cosmos is out of joint. Instead of humans being God's wise vice-regents over creation, they ignore the creator and try to worship something less demanding, something that will give them a short-term fix of power or pleasure.

— N.T. Wright

Financial crashes happen precisely because the people who remember the last one have either died or retired and thus are no longer around, with memories and character formed by that previous experience, to warn people not to be irresponsible.

— N.T. Wright

For Christians, it's always a love game ... that He is love itself ... Indeed, some have suggested that one way of understanding the Spirit is to see the Spirit as the personal love which the Father has for the Son and the Son for the Father.

— N.T. Wright

Forget happiness. You were called to a throne. How will you prepare for it? That is the question of virtue, Christian style.

— N.T. Wright

Good Christian liturgy is friendship in action, love taking thought, the covenant relationship between God and his people not simply discovered and celebrated like the sudden meeting of friends, exciting and worthwhile though that is, but thought through and relished, planned and prepared -- an ultimately better way for the relationship to grow and at the same time a way of demonstrating what the relationship is all about.

— N.T. Wright

Human" is a kind of midway creature, reflecting God into the world, and reflecting the world back to God.

— N.T. Wright

Human was simultaneously the bearer of God's wise rule into the world, and also the creature who would bring the loyalty and praise of that creation for its Creator into love, speech, and conscious obedience.

— N.T. Wright

If, therefore, those called to office and leadership roles in the church remain content merely to organize and manage the internal affairs of the church, they are leaving a vacuum exactly where there ought to be vibrant, pulsating life. Of course Christian leaders need to be trained and equipped for management, for running of the organization. The church will not thrive by performing in a bumbling, amateur fashion and hoping that piety and goodwill will make up for incompetence. But how much more should a Christian minister be a serious professional when it comes to grappling with scripture and discovering how it enables him or her, in preaching, teaching, prayer, and pastoral work, to engage with the huge issues that confront us as a society and as individuals. If we are professional about other things, we ought to be ashamed not to be properly equipped both to study the Bible ourselves and to bring its ever-fresh word to others.

— N.T. Wright

I have argued that the God of the Bible, and especially of the Gospels, can be understood only as God-in-public, and that methods of criticism designed to keep this rumor quiet need to be challenged by appropriate historical, theological, and political critique and replaced by methods that do justice to the reality of the texts and hence do justice - in the much fuller sense - in the public world that the Gospels demand to address.

— N.T. Wright

In particular, we must take account of the well-known and striking saying of Jesus to the dying brigand beside him, recorded by Luke (23.43). 'Today,' he said, 'you will be with me in paradise.' 'Paradise' is not the final destination; it is a beautiful resting place on the way there. But notice. If there is anyone in the New Testament to whom we might have expected the classic doctrine of purgatory to apply, it would be this brigand. He had no time for amendment of life; no doubt he had all kinds of sinful thoughts and desires in what was left of his body. All the standard arguments in favor of purgatory apply to him. And yet Jesus assures him of his place in paradise, not in a few days or weeks, not if his friends say a lot of prayers and masses for him, but 'today.

— N.T. Wright