Category: Quotation of the Week

Sometimes in leaning over to speak to the modern world, I fear that we may have fallen in! When, in our sermons, we sought to use our sermons to build a bridge from the old world of the Bible to the new modern world, the traffic was only moving in one direction on that interpretive… Continue reading Quotation of the Week

“Michael Wilkins, professor of New Testament and dean of the faculty at Talbot Seminary, regularly asks two questions when he speaks to groups about discipleship…The first question is, ‘How many of you can say, in the humble confidence of your heart, that you are true disciples of Jesus? Please raise your hand.’ Wilkins says that… Continue reading Quotation of the Week

“During the last year or so, I have come to appreciate the “worldliness” of Christianity as never before. The Christian is not a homo religiosus but a man, pure and simple, just as Jesus became man… It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe. One must abandon every attempt… Continue reading Quotation of the Week

We’re all willing to be Christians up to a point. And you know and I know that Jesus calls us to move beyond that point. Tony Campolo during a recent address at North Park University

“Even though something is commonplace, do we really need it in our lives?” With that question in mind, all sorts of things were up for grabs: buying a house in the “right” school district, needing two incomes, cell phones, minivans, and even (hold your breath!) signing our kids up for soccer. It was like a… Continue reading Quotation of the Week

Last week at the staff retreat at Mission Springs, one of the participants quipped: “If we heard an adult say that they are not GETTING fed in any other setting than the church, we’d consider them foolish (he used a stronger word).” If my adult children complained that they were not GETTING fed, I’d say… Continue reading Quotation of the Week

“Christian leaders seem to be reluctant to restate the terms of discipleship that Jesus laid out. What are the reasons for our reluctance? We are afraid that if we ask too much, people will stop coming to our churches…So we start with a low bar and try to entice people by increments of commitment, hoping… Continue reading Quotation of the Week

In the churches that I have been to, we sing well, the Bible is read, and Jesus is referenced, and we pray. And then there is the sermon, which is well crafted, and is creative and effectively presented. This message calls me to do something, to behave in way that is better than my current… Continue reading Quotation of the Week

“The exodus does not take Israel from serfdom to the freedom of independence but from service of one lord to service of another…The way Exodus talks of freedom—or rather, fails to do so—confronts Western preoccupation with freedom. Freedom in Scripture is the freedom to serve Yhwh.” From John Goldingay’s Old Testament Theology Volume One (Via… Continue reading Quotation of the Week