Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good

Tom Wright is one of my favorite authors and always seems to have a way to bring depth of insight and understanding to topics central to Christianity. Many of Wright’s arguments in Simply Good News will be familiar to those who have read his other books: his writing about the Bible, Heaven, Jesus and Christianity all cover related ground. However, the narrower focus of Simply Good News allows Wright to repeatedly and forcefully drive home his central thesis. Even if you have read much of N.T. Wright’s previous works this is one I would recommend. And if you have never read anything by N.T. Wright previously this could provide a good introduction to his writings.But the point is this: the good news of which Christians speak is indeed good news. To begin to discover the news about the present (the present challenge of God’s kingdom in the world, and of the transformation of your own life within that)— is to see the world with different eyes. To see God with different eyes. To see your neighbor with different eyes. To see yourself with different eyes. This is the challenge of the good news for today and tomorrow (p.151)I know this book has received mixed reviews by many others but personally I really enjoyed it. Both for it’s succinct message and the much needed reshaping of perspective that it brings. The good news aka “gospel” isn’t just rooted in the past and the future but has significant implications for us today in there here and now. God has stepped into human time and invited us to be a part of his present yet not fully here Kingdom; and not merely as bystanders but active co-participants with Him and through Him as transformed people who are then transforming the world.It has been done. It doesn’t need to be done again. The world is a different place because of Jesus. But when people believe this and find their own lives transformed by that belief, they are in turn recruited to be part of the continuing image-bearing work. They become transformed people who are then transforming the world. They become healed people through whom God brings healing to the world. They are put right with God (“ justified ”), so that they can be putting-right people for the world (“ justice”). (p.169)

Simply Good News opens with a series of illustrations that contrast the gospel as news with the gospel as advice. Wright wants readers to embrace the gospel as news, good news. The modern gospel, Wright suggests, amounts to mere advice - "say a prayer and you'll be saved. You won't go to hell; you'll go to heaven. Here's how to do it"--a truncated (and ultimately misshapen) view of the real gospel. Wright pushes against the all too common practice of abstracting a collection of timeless truths (or advice) about salvation from Scripture and calling it "the gospel." The real gospel, Wright contends, comes as news about Jesus rooted in a history complete with a backstory and heralded as an event with important personal entailments and social implications--some immediate and others forthcoming.Implicit in his distinction between news and advice, Wright wants Christians to rethink how they see (and explain) the gospel. For Wright, reducing the gospel to advice (such as "five steps to salvation") hardly does justice to the robust nature of the news about Jesus's life, death, resurrection and exaltation and boarders on misrepresenting the biblical emphasis. "For something to qualify as news," Wright says, "there has to be (1) an announcement of an event that has happened; (2) a larger context, a backstory, within which this makes sense; (3) a sudden unveiling of the new future that lies ahead; and (4) a transformation of the present moment, sitting between the event that has happened and the future event that therefore will happen." Echoing 1 Corinthians 15, Wright sums up the major touchstones of the gospel quite nicely: "The announcement of what has happened - Jesus's death and resurrection as the fulfillment of the ancient biblical promises and divine purposes - is matched by the assurance of what will happen in the future, when God is `all in all,' transforming the whole of creation and raising his people into new, transformed bodily life . . ." and "[b]ecause Jesus died and was raised, those who belong to him have died and been raised, and they must live accordingly. Because God is going to remake the whole world and raise his people from the dead, they must live in the present in accordance with that ultimate promised destiny." The rest of the book powerfully elaborates on the implications of embracing the gospel as good news in both proclamation and practice.I found Wright's book both timely and refreshing. He offers an apt word to those evangelicals who conflate the gospel message into barely comprehensible sound bytes divorced from a much larger biblical and historical context. Following a similar trajectory to two other outstanding books with parallel concerns, Darrell Bock's Recovering the Real Lost Gospel and Scot McKnight's The King Jesus Gospel, Wright's Simply Good News is simply excellent. Highly recommended!

N.T. Does a great job helping us to rethink, What is the Good News. Placing the message of the good news in its historical context both from the OT, thru the intertestiment years into the New Testament helps us to gain a fuller understanding of what the good news is and means.His discussion of the broader implications of the good news from something individual (get saved and go to heaven) to seeing the good news as gods announcement that he will become king of his world and that he is calling us to join him in this mission adds a deeper meaning to what it means to be saved. The church desperately needs to hear this.Finally his chapter on the Lord's Prayer should be required reading by all. This oft read prayer has lost its meaning (similar to John 3:16) and is beautifully recaptured by Wright.

Thank You for such GOOD NEWS that includes all who come to You no matter which door You open for us!

This book was a challenge to my modern day version of the 'good news' of Christianity. Thank you for pointing me to a much larger version of the work of God through Jesus

Following on from Simply Jesus and Simply Christian, this is another excellent read from Tom Wright. The second half of the book is particularly good and worth persevering through the first half to get to it.

Tom Wright is a wordsmith 'par-excellence' whether in a book like this which is accessible to all, or as his shameless alter ego N.T.Wright, author of works of academic theology.This book has one simple message, which the author arrives at in the penultimate chapter and then restates and reminds us to finish the book.The simple message is that the PR has gone wrong and the word that has got out there is a garbled 'Chinese message' compared to what was intended. So I guess the simple message has ben inordinately complicated along the way!This book isn't aimed at Christians nor is it aimed at non-Christians, it is written for people!As you journey with Tom, meandering through the 171 pages (yes there is an additional subject index - what more would you expect from a theologian) you find yourself agreeing with his conclusions. At no point does the author enter a criticism-fest of how people portray the gospel, but. rather like a friendly and authoritative old grandfather he holds your hand through the twists and turns of world history and leads you to the most important display in the exhibition. Whatever background you have, you will find nothing offensive here. On the face of it these are just the ramblings of one of our greatest thinkers, except when you finally arrive at the end you see the structure of his thought in all its wonder!A worthwhile addition to anyone's bookshelf

A hope bringing book - God is alive and well and he is still working to bring the world to fullness. Loads of down to earth points, illustrations and easy to take in language brings context to Christianity and its purpose. Heaven and earth collide in Jesus - world changing transformation. Many layers to unpack for me.

N.T. Wright did not let me down again. Loved the book right to the end. It will stretch your understanding of what you think the 'Good News' is.