N.T Wright on the Bible's Most Misunderstood Verse

NT Wright is correct, it took me until my later years to discover that God the Father truly loves me because I equated God the Father to my own abusive father. Also as a small child I remembered the blood & thunder sermons of the 1950s which first put the fear of God into me. It wasn't really until 7 years ago when I first read the Old Testament for the first time that I finally came to understand that God so loved the world.... Finally I was able to embrace God the Father as my LOVING, HEAVENLY FATHER!!

ROMANS 8:28 IS THE VERSE THEY ARE DISCUSSING. I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT I HAD TO SEARCH THROUGH 25 COMMENTS TO FIND IT.

This Russell Moore interview of NT Wright is based on the 2023 NT Wright book, “Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive Into Paul’s Greatest Letter.” The book is about one chapter: Romans 8. The verse under consideration is Romans 8:28. A traditional translation of Rom 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (ESV). Or in the KJV: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” NT Wright argues that in the original Greek, in Rom 8:28, “God is the subject of the main verb.” The subject is not “all things.” So he prefers the RSV translation: “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (see p. 158). What's the significance? It is in the word, WITH. "God works all things together for good WITH those who love him.” Not “for those” or “to them.” And this is why this video title has the phrase “the most misunderstood verse in the Bible.” One of the main results of this view is that salvation is less about “being saved FROM the world” and more about “being saved FOR the world.” This represents a paradigm shift concerning our vocation as the people of God. There are massive implications for our theology and practice. In his book, Wright spells all this out in a verse-by-verse exegesis of the Greek. The Russell Moore interview with Wright offers tip-of-the iceberg highlights.  (Written by Werner Mischke, VP, Mission ONE)

Come let us reason together! Love the way Professor Wright "reasons". What a tremendous blessing.

Thank You for hosting this great conversation…and giving us opportunity to see and hear the amazing voice, insight and experience of NT Wright!

Thank you for this interview, both to Prof Wright for his knowledge, and to Russell Moore for his insightful questions.

I stumbled on this vide today. Truly blessed by it . Thank you Russell and thank you Mr NT wright

An outstanding interview! Thank you very much.

Thank you. This is a wonderful conversation.

I saw "N.T. Wright" in the title of this video and had to watch! The beginning of the pandemic in 2020 coincided with Lent, and I decided to get off social media for 40 days and nights EXCEPT for videos by Bible scholars and teachers. I discovered N.T. Wright and watched just about every lecture and sermon of his that I could find on YouTube. His book "Surprised By Hope" is not a surprise given what I heard in those lectures...so hopeful! I was an Episcopalian at the time, and have now become a Catholic...but I still love to listen to him speak. Through him I have learned what the Christian hope *is*, and what Christians are called to *be*. I've sometimes mused that perhaps Tom Wright is an apostle of hope.

So interesting and so much to absorb. Thank you gentlemen, I'll be listening again and probably again!.

Just finished listening again, “for by its’ light, I can see all things,” Thank you, Tom, for that gem of thought. Amen

I love N.T. Wright ❤❤❤ he so knowledgeable and I love his way of teaching Thanks for sharing. ❤

Thank you for this interview. It’s a very long time since I was a student at Wycliffe Hall and N T Wright was Chaplain of Worcester College and a visiting lecturer on NT studies at Wycliffe! I’ve had an on/off relationship with his works over the years, partly because some people whose theology I didn’t get on with thought he was the bee’s leg-joints, so as I didn’t trust them theologically, I didn’t trust him. This interview reminded me of what I liked about him when I did hear him speaking, and that his theology is a generous orthodoxy with room for people to disagree without having to be disagreeable about it. His emphasis on covenant is refreshing in contrast to the mediaeval Latin-legalism that often marks discussion of atonement on the Calvinist side of the aisle, without giving way to those who dismiss penal, substitutionary atonement as barbaric and sub-Christian, throwing out the atoning baby with the theological bathwater. I loved his way of saying that we and some of those with whom we disagree may be either side of a dividing line between two ways of thinking, but yet be closer together than we are to the extremes on our side of the dividing line. The Bible does not place us with Cicero in the Roman Forum, nor with Greta Thunberg on the climate protest, but with Jesus by the sea, in the temple and on the cross. The mediaeval church and Christians in that day were in their own time, we are in ours, and we need to pass on the message of God’s love in Christ and how it works out, in the context in which we now are, linking the world of the Bible with the world of today.

My uncle Livingston Blauvelt did a wonderful new translation and commentary on Romans, calling it, rightly so, Pauls Magnum Opus. I will have to find this new NT Wright book at a local library.

In many many places in the old testament and it's also stated in at least one place in the new testament." The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom ". Now yes without a doubt God loves us and even came down from heaven and suffered a horrible death to reestablish our relationship with him. Modern people continually want to only emphasize The God of mercy and love ....and want to ignore the dignity and power and majesty...the one whom we owe our reverential love, obedience and worship. God isn't to be reduced to our slave by his love for us! We are to be conformed to him ....not him accepting our sin and him being forced by his love for us to ignore our stubborn obstinate life of sin!

NT Wright dropping the mic on our fits in the West!

You know I'm so blessed by NTS depth and love of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the scriptures I was hearing that Russell Brand a fellow Brit who is a large cultural force in his own right and has embraced Buddhism in the past but is now exploring Christianity and was reading CS Lewis's the problem of pain and I was wondering if Professor Wright reads this, if he would be able to reach out to Russell Brand to perhaps discuss these matters, noting that to me NT wright is probably the inheritor of the legacy of CS Lewis and therefore able to answer Brands questions about the Faith, in depth .

Russell, a marvellous job as interviewer!

Great discussion.