“It is in our virtuous behavior that we are liable to the gravest sins. It is while we are being good that we have the chance of being really bad. It is in this context of being responsible, being obedient, that we most easily substitute our will for God’s will, because it is so easy to suppose that they are identical. “ ~Eugene Peterson
“You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship. Those who worship money become human calculating machines. Those who worship sex become obsessed with their own attractiveness or prowess. Those who worship power become more and more ruthless. So what happens when you worship the creator God whose plan to rescue the world and put it to rights has been accomplished by the Lamb who was slain?…Because you were made in God’s image, worship makes you more truly human. When you gaze in love and gratitude at the God in whose image you were made, you do indeed grow. You discover more of what it means to be fully alive.” –N. T. Wright
“For many today, God seems an enemy of human flourishing. Yet, in the Christian tradition, God is portrayed as a lover of creation–so much so that the early church father Irenaeus could say, ‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive.’ While critical appraisal of malfunctions of faith are crucial, we must go beyond the critical moment to discover afresh today how and why God matters for human flourishing.” –Miroslav Volf
For the past couple weeks I have been preparing a series in the Sermon on the Mount. I am finding John Stott to be very helpful in my preparation. Here is Stott’s explanation of the SOTM’s purpose: ”The followers of Jesus are to be different–different from both the nominal church and the secular world, different from both the religious and irreligious. The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete delineation anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian counter-culture. Here is a Christian value-system, ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude to money, ambition, life-style and network of relationships–all of which are totally at variance with those of the non-Christian world. And this Christian counter-culture is the life of the kingdom of God, a fully human life indeed but lived out under the divine rule.” –John Stott
“The question of Jesus’ resurrection, though it may in some senses burst the bounds of history, also remains within them; that is precisely why it is so important, so disturbing, so life-and-death. We could cope–the world could cope–with a Jesus who ultimately remains a wonderful idea inside his disciples’ minds and hearts. The world cannot cope with a Jesus who comes out of the tomb, who inaugurates God’s new creation right in the middle of the old one.”
–N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope
