N.T. Wright and Herod Pantipus

We are reading N.T. Wright's Lent for Everyone: Matthew during our family Bible time this year as a way of entering into Lent and preparing for Easter. (Why is it that there are all kinds of children's resources for Christmas, but not Easter?)

The picture on the left was the result of one of our deep theological discussions last week...after I accidentally mispronounced "Herod Antipas."

Overall, however, we are all benefiting from reading Matthew, and the accompanying text is vintage Wright, which is fine. At its best it fixes the text more firmly in mind and encourages devotional reflection. One also gets a succinct and accessible version of Wright's model of Jesus in his Jewish context.

Here, for example, I think Wright nails the difference between Jesus and the Pharisees without denigrating first-century Judaism too much:

"That was the real bone of contention between Jesus and the Pharisees. They were supporting a system which, at its best, was pointing forward to God's great desire to find a purified people for himself. Jesus was claiming that God was now doing this, through him. They were setting up signposts; he claimed to offer the reality which made the signposts redundant."