I’m having to do this on an iPhone so I’ll keep it short. Scot McKnight has this quote from G.B. Caird in his excellent book A New Vision for Israel (11). The sharply “political” imagery captures very well the contrast between old and new perspectives on the gospel. When Jesus sent out the twelve, the disciples

were not evangelistic preachers sent out to save individual souls for some unearthly paradise. They were couriers proclaiming a national emergency and conducting a referendum on a question of national survival.