Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
One of the arguably core concerns of the historical Jesus was to proclaim good news to the poor. This chapter investigates what "good news for the poor" might have meant in the ministry of Jesus, in as much as this is recoverable, and what happened to it in the course of the early decades of Christianity as reflected in the writings of the New Testament. Inevitably such investigation is coloured by contemporary concerns not least because the injustice of world poverty confronts us. The desire for relevance can easily reconstruct a Jesus who addresses such needs in ways that match our ideal strategies and hopes. The chapter aims at entering Jesus's distant and strange world to hear as far as is possible what he was saying, what it might have meant in his setting, and then for those who followed him.