Preparing to lead a discussion on Paul, I was going back over N. T. Wright’s 1978 Tyndale lecture, “The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith.”  Had to pause over these lines for a few moments:

Salvation history cannot be triumphalistic, if it is to be true to itself.  As the risen Lord is recognized by the mark of the nails, so the risen Israel must be known by its suffering, temptation, repentance and bearing of the cross.  If the church is, in salvation historical terms, ecclesia catholica, the visible community of God’s people, its cross-and-resurrection pattern demands that it be also ecclesia semper reformanda.