All Christian language about the future is a set of signposts pointing into a mist.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that any language or predictions about the future are inherently unclear and uncertain.
N. T. Wright's quote highlights the limitations of human language when it comes to describing the future, particularly in a Christian context. It implies that while we may attempt to articulate our hopes or beliefs about what lies ahead, those expressions are ultimately mere signposts guiding us through the uncertainty and ambiguity of what is to come, much like navigating through a mist where visibility is poor.
In practice
In a sermon discussing faith, this quote could be used to illustrate the mystery of divine plans.
The resurrection completes the inauguration of God's kingdom. . . . It is the decisive event demonstrating thet God's kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven." "The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it.
True worship doesn't put on a show or make a fuss; true worship isn't forced, isn't half-hearted, doesn't keep looking at its watch, doesn't worry what the person in the next pew is doing. True worship is open to God, adoring God, waiting for God, trusting God even in the dark.
Most of the things that really matter require faith. How do I know that my wife loves me? How do I know that Mozarts Jupiter Symphony is sublime and beautiful? There are all sorts of things which come at a more lowly level than that - How do I know that two plus two equals four? There are different layers, different types of knowing.
To get overprotective about particular readings of the Bible is always in danger of idolatry.
Without God's Spirit, there is nothing we can do that will count for God's kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply can't be the church.
I'm not a universalist, and the way I talk about final loss is this: People worship idols - money, whatever. Their humanness gets reshaped around the idol - you become like what you worship. That's one of the basic spiritual laws.
My book centers in on the New Testament, the goal being to help a person who wants to understand the Bible to see how what God did as revealed in the New Testament will reveal to them their own personal story.
I don’t envision a long life for myself. Like, I think my life will run out before my work does, y’know? I’ve designed it that way.
From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness. This month, next year...death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again forever.
You cannot stand anywhere in the universe that is outside of yourself.
Our greatest gain is to lose the wealth that is of such brief duration and, by comparison with eternal things, of such little worth; yet we get upset about it and our gain turns to loss.
Civilization is the art of living in towns of such size the everyone does not know everyone else.
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