Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi
To this strand within the kingdom-story belong those short parables that envisage people giving up everything to follow Jesus. Pearls of great price can only be bought when one has sold everything else; the buried treasure is worth all else that one might have to abandon.210 The various mammon-sayings function in the same way: following Jesus meant
... See moreN. T. Wright • Jesus Victory of God V2: Christian Origins And The Question Of God
Millions of readers, when they hear Matthew’s Jesus talking about doing this or that “so that you may enter the kingdom of heaven,” assume, without giving it a moment’s thought, that this means “so that you may go to heaven when you die.”
N. T. Wright • How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels
Certain basic questions emerge: Jesus’ message is evaluated, not for its timeless significance, but for the meaning it must have had for the audience of his own day, who had their minds full of poverty and politics, and would have had little time for theological abstractions or timeless verities.