Creeds Quote by N.T. Wright
““The great creeds, when they refer to Jesus, pass directly from his virgin birth to his suffering and death. The four gospels don’t. Or, to put it the other way around, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all seem to think it’s hugely important that they tell us a great deal about what Jesus did between the time of his birth and the time of his death. In particular, they tell us about what we might call his kingdom-inaugurating work: the deeds and words that declared that God’s kingdom was coming then and there, in some sense or other, on earth as in heaven. They tell us a great deal about that; but the great creeds don’t.””
About This Quote
Source Book: The New Testament and the Christian Faith, N.T. Wright, 2012
The creeds focus on core events of Jesus, while the Gospels detail his earthly ministry and kingdom work.
In simple terms: Creeds summarize; Gospels expand.
Key Takeaway
Study both for fuller understanding.
Themes
theology
history
scripture
Mood
scholarly
inquisitive
Type
theological
educational
When to use this quote
- church teaching
- Bible study
- seminary courses
- faith formation
Key Concepts
Christology
kingdom theology
Questions to Reflect On
- What does the kingdom work mean today?
- How do creeds shape belief?
A Different Perspective
Creeds may oversimplify complex narratives.
![“[The gospels] are not merely antiquarian documents telling a strange story about a powerful but now long-gone moment of history. They are the moment of sunrise on a new morning, casting a strange glory over the landscape and inviting all readers to wake up, rub the sleep from their eyes, and come…” quote by N.T. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/bb5/n-t-wright-1173_christianity_the-gospels-are-not-merely-antiquarian-d_2730377.jpg)
![“The point [of the gospels] is not whether Jesus is God, but what God is doing in and through Jesus. What is this embodied God up to?” quote by N.T. Wright](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/42d/n-t-wright-1173_christianity_the-point-of-the-gospels-is-not-whether_531854.jpg)
![“It was The Gospel From Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout. It was about a visitor from outer space...[who] made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New…” quote by Kurt Vonnegut](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e53/kurt-vonnegut-41_bible_it-was-the-gospel-from-outer-space-by-ki_77926.jpg)
![“Burridge goes on to say, “[T]rying to decode the Gospels through the genre of modern biography, when the author encoded his message in the genre of ancient [biography], will lead to another nonsense—blaming the text for not containing modern predilections which it was never meant to contain.”286…” quote by Trent Horn](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f71/trent-horn-66792_last-supper_burridge-goes-on-to-say-t-rying-to-decod_76757.jpg)
