Tally Man – John Stott on Romans 12:21

I encountered this quote from John Stott while studying Romans 12:17-21

John Stott, Romans, 1994, IVP, p. 337

“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

“In all our thinking and living it is important to keep the negative and positive counterparts together.  Both are good. It is good never to retaliate, because if we repay evil for evil, we double it, adding a second evil to the first, and so increasing the tally of evil in the world.  It is even better to be positive, to bless, to do good, to seek peace, and to serve and convert out enemy, because if we thus repay good for evil, we reduce the tally of evil in the world, while at the same time increasing the tally for good. To repay evil for evil is to be overcome by it; to repay good for evil is to overcome evil with good.  This is the way of the cross…”

Omnipresence – A. W. Tozer

Where shall I go from your Spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your Presence? Psalm 139:7

            “What now does the divine immanence mean in direct Christian experience? It means simply that God is here. Wherever we are, God is here. There is no place, there can be no place, where He is not. Ten million intelligences standing at as many points in space and separated by incomprehensible distances can each one say with equal truth, God is here. No point is nearer to God than any other point. It is exactly as near to God from any place as it is from any other place. No one is in mere distance any further from or any nearer to God than any other person is.”

The Pursuit of God, A. W. Tozer, Tyndale, p. 62

 

First Fruits Quote

Have you, dear reader, ever thought about the festival of the First Fruits? It’s connection to Jesus?

“Christ the sacrifice of first fruits represents a new season of not mere survival, but thriving.  His sacrifice means Christians no longer live from the old harvest, from the fruits of the old humanity, but from a new way of being, from the risen Christ….its benefits include not just a new life in the End, but a new way of life here and now, namely life in the Spirit that is continually dedicated to God the Father…And in this new way of life, Christians may also serve as a kind of “first fruits” for others, indicating the future that God intends for the whole of Creation.”

(Robert Sherman, King, Priest and Prophet, T&T Clark, 2004 p. 179)

Brevity is next to Godliness

I found this today – it is “old” in on sense, from 1839, but it was pretty fresh to me:

“Why, then, is Jesus, the Son of God, called The Anointed?

Because to his manhood were imparted without measure all the gifts of the Holy Ghost; and so he possesses in the highest degree the knowledge of a prophet; the holiness of a high priest; and the power of a king.”

Longer Catechism, Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church, 1839, quoted in Basic Christian Doctrines, Ed. Carl F. H. Henry; Holt, Rinehart and Winston; NY, 1962

Quotes: Scholarship and Wisdom

From Witherington:

“Notice that the way  ’virtue’ is inculcated in most of these sayings is not by direct command or imperative but rather by setting examples before the listener’s ears and letting them discern and decide which examples to shun and which to follow.  Proverbs are basically a form of moral persuasion, not authoritative command.”  P.  26

 

 

 

King, Priest, and Prophet: A Trinitarian Theology of Atonement; Robert Sherman, T&T Clark, NY/London, 2004

This book is about a complete theology of the Atonement, tying the atonement to Trinitarian Theology.  I got it for a sermon series this fall, “Prophet, Priest, King and Sage.”

“…To be sure, I am an ‘academic theologian’ and the book exhibits a number of standard academic trappings…but my motivation for writing ins pastoral.  I am convinced that theology written for the academy — or, more pointedly, just for other academic theologians – misses its original and true calling.  That calling is to serve the church by helping it better understand the full meaning and implications of the gospel it proclaims in its preaching, liturgy, counseling, catechesis, and evangelism.  I offer this book in hopes that it may make certain biblical themes and theological traditions more accessible and powerfully present for ministers in their diverse pastoral work, to the end that the church’s work my be faithfully enriched and strengthened.”  p. ix

Augustine Quote: The power of an image

“Many have come to the place of salvation, having laid down their sinful burdens, and having also received the Holy Spirit.  They now live out a double love.  They love God and they love their neighbors.

            Yet, saying it this way it is not all that pleasing to the listener.  It is better when I show it from Song of Solomon 4:2. In this passage the Church of Jesus is compared to a beautiful woman.  ‘Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing.  Each has its twin; not one of them is alone.’

            Does the listener learn anything more by this figurative passage then when the words are plain?  No.  Yet, somehow, I get more pleasure from imagining the servants of God as being so many teeth, tearing men away from their errors and bringing them into the Body of Christ, with all their hard edges chewed down, just as if they had been torn and chewed by teeth.  I also love to imagine the sinner as a sheep who lays aside its filth and arising clean from the waters of baptism.  And these sheep all have twins; in that they live according to God’s dual command to love God and to love others.  Not one of these fails, but all are full of the fruit of love.”              On Christian Doctrine, 2:6

Luther Quote: Dancing Camels

“To me it is often a source of great pleasure and wonderment to see that the entire female body was created for the purpose of nurturing children.  How prettily even little girls carry babies [in their arms!]  As for the mothers themselves, how deftly they move whenever the whimpering baby either has to be quieted or is to be placed into its cradle!  Get a man to do the same things, and you will say that a camel is dancing, so clumsily will he do the simplest tasks around a baby!”      Luther’s Works V 1, p. 202

Lectionary Quotes

"brush stroke of particularity"

So I notice the dip in the ratings when I use the word lectionary…well, too bad.

Here are a few quotes from this weeks readings – which are I Samuel 16:1-3; Psalm 23; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 11.  They all come from Feasting on the Word, Year 1, Vol 2.

“One way to approach preaching Psalm 23 is not to preach it. Just read it slowly – preferably in the King James Version — and sit down.  This will not score points among the serious intellectuals in your congregation, but the middle-school crowds will love you for it.  The over-seventy crowd will thank you for not over-talking a text that is so rich in history and meaning that simply the sound of its words and the rhythm of its cadence sing us into the presence of a mystery that can not be touched by rhetoric.”  David M. Burns

“In Advent we celebrate the light of God coming to the world in Jesus Christ. It is God’s act.  God bring the light to earth and to us. In Lent we witness darkness creeping up to, circling around and apparently overcoming Jesus.  Yet here again God is once again the actor.  God brings Jesus to life…”   Laird J. Stuart (Ephesians 5:8ff)

“Most of us, whether in pulpit or pew, have already heard plenty about the awesome powers of darkness.  What we most need, as bearers of Christ’s light, are glimpses of  our possibilities for exposing that works of darkness.  This means offering the people brushstrokes of particularity that bring to life Christ aglow in each of us.”  Don Wardlaw  (Ephesians 5:8ff)

“Just because you had a holy moment with mud does not mean that the rest of us will stop scraping it off our boots, right?”   Anna Carter Florence.  (John 9:6ff)

I particularly like the idea of “brush strokes of particularity…”