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EPISODE NOTES
In this episode of the “Transforming the Church” podcast, Pastor Derwin L. Gray welcomes the esteemed New Testament scholar, Reverend Dr. N.T. Wright. Together, they explore the depths of Jesus’ mercy, the challenges and glories of ministry, and the importance of prayer and scripture in spiritual growth. Dr. Wright shares personal anecdotes, including his interactions with the late Queen of England, and offers insights into the global state of the church. This conversation is rich with wisdom, encouragement, and a call to embody the transformative power of the gospel.
Here are a few of the practical things you’ll learn in this episode:
- Inexhaustible Mercy of Jesus: Dr. Wright emphasizes the profound and surprising depths of Jesus’ mercy, which continues to reveal itself in new ways throughout his life.
- The Call to Ministry: Dr. Wright shares his early sense of calling to ministry and the importance of having mentors and role models who speak life into young people.
- Challenges and Glories of Ministry: Ministry is described as both more challenging and more glorious than one can imagine, with the potential to push back darkness and reveal God’s light.
- Importance of Prayer and Scripture: Dr. Wright stresses the necessity of engaging deeply with the Bible and prayer as foundational practices for spiritual growth.
- Global Church Dynamics: While some areas show decline, there are also signs of new growth and vitality in the church, particularly in places like London.
- Personal Stories and Influence: Dr. Wright shares personal stories, including his interactions with the Queen, highlighting the importance of grace and good manners.
QUOTES
- “The depth of mercy, the sense that Jesus still loves me despite everything.” – Dr. N.T.
Wright - “It’ll be far worse than you fear and it’ll be far more glorious than you can possibly
imagine.” – Dr. N.T. Wright on ministry - “When Jesus wanted to explain to his followers what his death was going to mean… he
gave them a meal.” – Dr. N.T. Wright - “God is the God of surprises and does extraordinary things in answer to people’s
prayer.” – Dr. N.T. Wright
PODCAST RESOURCES
• More from Derwin: www.derwinlgray.com and www.transformationchurch.tc/podcast
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• The Transforming the Church Podcast is part of the The ChurchLeaders Podcast Network.
CONNECT WITH DERWIN
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/derwinlgray
• Instagram: @derwinlgray
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SHOW TRANSCRIPTION
Hey, guys, what’s happening? This is Pastor Derwin L. Gray, and I want to welcome you to “Transforming the Church” podcast. I know your time is exceedingly valuable, and I want to make this an investment for one, so you can know Jesus and love him more and to make his love known, two, to grow in spiritual formation, and three, grow as a leader. This podcast is about transformation.
It is about Jesus. So if you would like and subscribe and please share with your friends,
that would mean a whole bunch. Now, I’m trying to contain myself because I got a real
special guest right now. Now, it’s not LeBron James, it’s not Michael Jordan, but it is the LeBron James Michael Jordan of New Testament scholarship, the one and only Reverend Dr. N.T. Wright. Dr. Wright, thank you so much for being on “Transforming the Church” podcast. Thank you very much. I’m delighted to be here.
So I have a question. This is a deep, deep. I mean, like, this is gonna make you have to go back to your days of Plutarch and philosophy. Have you ever had an introduction the way I introduced you at Transformation Church? No. This was a whole new experience and delightful, refreshing. I was wishing my wife was tuned into it, actually, because she would be rolling her eyes as so often. You know what they say, behind every successful man there is a woman rolling her eyes. Well, thank you so much. You preached an incredible message on Isaiah 40.
I want to encourage everybody to download that message and to listen to it, so let’s just jump right into it. So you are 75 years old now, right? Yep. So I hope and pray that my wife and I have energy like you at your age and your passion for Jesus, the kingdom, the gospel for people, is beautiful. So at 75 years, you’ve written 85 books, and you got a new book that’s going to be coming out, and you told me about it.
Oh, I can’t wait. What has surprised you about Jesus now, again and again? The depth of mercy, the sense that Jesus still loves me despite everything. You know, that something about the kingdom of God in the life and preaching of Jesus, which just has depths upon depths upon depths. I mean, I had a lot of music in my background, and I discovered quite early that even though I knew the basic tunes of, say, a symphony of Beethoven or something like that, then the next time you heard it, it wasn’t just the tunes.
There was more going on than you realized and more and more each time you heard it. That’s the key to great music. And the same with the gospel that I’ve known about Jesus since I was tiny growing up in church, and I have loved Jesus since I was really quite small. But the message of the gospel goes on surprising me, and I think at the heart of it is mercy. One of the great teachers in the Catholic church fairly recently wrote a book on mercy, and it was all about the inexhaustible riches of God’s mercy shown to us in Jesus.
And when you look at the gospel stories, you see it again and again. So I just love reading through the gospels day by day and feeling that sense of Jesus dealing with people as he deals with me. Wow, that’s beautiful. His inexhaustible mercy. We were talking over dinner and you had mentioned that you knew God called you into ministry at an early age.
So how early? Well, I don’t know exactly when it was, but I must have been 7, 8, 9, that sort of age. Which is funny because I now look at as one of my grandsons who’s just recently turned eight. And I’m thinking I was that little person and God was knocking on the door and saying, but growing up in church, singing hymns, reading the Bible, et cetera, et cetera, I was kind putting myself in the way of. And my mother’s father was in parish ministry and he ended up as an archdeacon, actually.
And so there was a natural sort of. I could see what he was doing at least on Sundays, and natural role model for me. So that whereas with some people a call to ministry is an absolute shock to them and their family, for me and my family, this was kind of, okay, we know about that. We’ve got, we’ve got people who do that. But even so, it was, it was very powerful.
Powerful. So much so that I was puzzled by it because my father had been in business all his working life and it was the family business, and he’d been fifth generation and I was the oldest son. So I just assumed that it was expected that I would have to take on the business. And then one day my dad casually said to me, when I was maybe 10 or 11, when you want. When you decide what you want to do with your life.
And I remember thinking, you mean I do get a choice? Because I knew exactly where that was going. And so it was a kind of a relief. And so I was prepared from an early age for. And the other thing was there was a schoolmaster who I really respected, and he asked me one day what I was going to.
This was when I maybe was 11 or 12. And I said, I think I’m going to be ordained wow. And, and I was a bit scared of his reaction, but he was so positive. He said, that’s a wonderful thing to do and you’ll be helping people and doing this and that. And he told me, you’ll have to learn Greek as soon as you can to read the New Testament.
So as soon as 12 years old. As soon as I could. I started in Greek when I was 13. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Dr. Wright, wait, Dr. Wright, hold on, let’s. Let’s time out. At 13 years old, you started in Greek? Yeah, I’d had Latin from eight.
I mean, that was the school system I was in. We did French and Latin from 8 and then Greek from 13. Yeah. So, like, the more I get to know you, you’re like one of those mythological creatures. It’s kind of like, yes, When I was 13, I started Greek and I did Latin before then.
But you know what I love? You had people speak Gospel life over you. And one of our values here at Transformation Church is we’re a multi-generational church and we say that our teenagers and preteens are not the church of tomorrow, they’re the church of now. And there’s something powerful about adults just speaking life over a young person. So when your dad says, when you decide what you’re going to do, what would you say to that 19-year-old young man?
Now, after the life and career you’ve led as one of the most profound New Testament scholars of the last 200 years, what would you tell him? What would I tell the 9-year-old or the 19-year-old? The 19-year-old.
I know vaguely what the answer is, because a few years ago I was speaking at a conference for ordination candidates, people who are going into ministry. And one in the Q and A, one of them blurted out and said, what’s it actually going to be like? And I thought for a minute, I said a quick prayer, I took my courage in both hands and I said, it’ll be far worse than you fear and it’ll be far more glorious than you can possibly imagine. And I think both of those are true, that when you’re in ministry, there are huge challenges and huge disappointments and apparent setbacks and tragedies and things that don’t go the way that you are convinced they should go. And you know that comes with the turf.
Because when you’re in serious ministry, you’re pushing back the frontiers of darkness and letting the light in. And God is using you to do that. And the darkness doesn’t like that and fights back. But at the same time, the glory is shining through. And every time you see somebody who suddenly gets it and comes to faith and has their life transformed, you just think, there’s nothing better than to watch that happening.
Wow, I need to marinate on that. Because that is. Not only is it true, cognitively, experimentally, it’s true. But I’m going to make this up. You can correct me if I’m wrong, but doxologically it’s true.
Like, I just, I want to. I find myself right now being caught up in worship, realizing that ministry is harder than you think, but it’s more glorious than you. You realize. That is stunning. So in your country, England, the uk, Europe, the Western general, there are less and less people following Jesus.
And one of my contentions is if congregations are not missionary forces of grace, how are people going to know? And so you were very kind to write an endorsement for my new book, Lit Up With Love, Becoming Good News People in a Gospel Starved World. And one of the things you said is Derwin Gray’s passion for Jesus and the Gospel leaps off every page. When I got that in the email, I went to my wife, I went to everybody. I’m like, this is what N.T. Wright said about my book. I mean, I’m 53 years old, but I felt like I was 10 years old on. It was like Christmas Day, 10 years old. I was excited. So thank you for that.
Why did you endorse my book? Oh, it was exciting. I confess I don’t normally read books in this genre, but having met you and having been to and fro a bit with you, I thought I’d be interested to see what Derwin’s saying here. And it was really refreshing because as I say, normally if I’m sitting down in the morning to read a book, it’s a work of New Testament scholarship or academic theology, because it’s feeding into projects that I’m doing. And I thought I’d give myself a treat.
Let’s read about. And it’s the stories that you tell, your own story, which is in here, but also stories of people that you’ve known, of people who you’ve helped pastorally. And again and again, we all need, and we biblical scholars need to be reminded that this is how the Gospel actually lands in real people’s real lives. And of course, I believe it has landed in my real life and my family’s real life in all sorts of ways. But to get these stories and to think, yeah, this is how it goes was like, it gave me a real boost And I was very happy to sit down and bash out a few lines.
I appreciate that. When N.T. Wright bashes out a few lines, I don’t know what bashes means, but it must be good. And I’m going to start using because Dr. Wright uses it. The Transforming the Church podcast is a part of the Church Leaders Podcast Network, which is dedicated to resourcing church leaders in order to help them face the complexities of ministry.
Church Leaders Podcast Network supports pastors and ministry leaders by challenging assumptions, providing insights, and offering practical steps that will help church leaders navigate a variety of cultures and contexts. Learn more at churchleaders.com podcast network so as you look at the UK and you look at America and you look at Europe, why do you think Christians, if we have the greatest news there is, why do you think we don’t share it? Well, we do and we don’t. And I have to say the stats are a bit odd. In the UK, there are some places where Christianity really seems to be in decline.
Other places where there are new churches like your church, probably not quite as big as this, but large suddenly springing up. Where I used to be in ministry in Durham, which is in the northeast of England, there were some of the old churches which were dying on their feet and that was really tragic and people didn’t know what to do. And then other places where there were quite literally new churches being built springing up. I had a couple of churches where they had so many in their congregation they needed to enlarge the church. And I went along and said prayers of dedication for these new enlarged churches.
So it’s not all one way traffic and especially in London for some reason, and I resent this because I’m from the northeastern London is that, you know, noisy place entitled sort of place down there. But London has a lot of young people in and a lot of very lively churches. And people come from all over the world to work in London and often they become part of the various churches. So there are several different stories to tell. And I think what’s happening is the church is in a way being pruned, but there’s new growth coming through and that’s, that’s, that’s very exciting to see.
That’s awesome. What are you excited about and hopeful about the church, not just in the west, but globally. What excites you? Well, I guess I’m always excited by the fact that God is the God of surprises and God does extraordinary things in answer to people’s prayer. And I know there’s many people around the world, praying for some of the dire situations.
Right now, there’s one good lady who is seriously ill, who lives just outside Oxford. And mostly we talk on email because we’ve only met once or twice. But she is a great woman of prayer. She is dying of cancer. In fact, she’s surprised that she’s still alive now, but she will spend a whole night in prayer for Ukraine.
She told me on an email just this morning that she spent last night in prayer for the American election. And when you hear of people like this and meet them, you realize that out of her suffering, she is bringing a love for God, a love for his world, a love for people, what we used to call in the trade a love for souls, by which you mean, you know, people’s lives to be turned around by the love of Jesus. And in my own ministry, I’ve experienced, as long as there are people there who are praying, God is going to be doing new things. It may not be exactly what I want, it may not be exactly when I want, but God uses people’s prayer to advance his kingdom in all sorts of ways. And so, you know, we need that, but we’ve always needed it.
