When people are dying around you, your purpose becomes crystal clear, and you live recklessly for it.
–A pastor in a country where the church is facing great persecution
from an email
Archive for March, 2008
Live Recklessly
Posted in persecution, suffering on March 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Easter Demands a Response
Posted in Jesus, Resurrection on March 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Even the resurrection, the joyful end of the Easter story, resists domestication as it resists banalization. Unlike Christmas, it also resists a noncommittal response. Even agnostics and atheists who don’t accept Christ’s divinity can accept the general outlines of the Christmas story with little danger to their worldview. But Easter demands a response. It’s hard [...]
You Jonah
Posted in Poetry, comfort, health and wealth on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
And Jonah stalked
to his shaded seat
and waited for God
to come around
to his way of thinking.
And God is still waiting for a host of Jonahs
in their comfortable houses
to come around
to His way of loving.
–Thomas Carlisle
from “You Jonah”
as quoted by Johannes Verkuyl
(Perspectives Reader p.33)
Israel’s Calling
Posted in Israel, to bless all families on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Israel’s calling was not the occasion or basis for rejecting any of the nations of the world, but instead the very means of blessing them all.
–Walter C. Kaiser Jr.
Israel’s Missionary Call
(Perspectives reader p.13)
Triple Fulfillment of Prophecy
Posted in John Stott, prophecy on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Of particular importance is the principle, with which I think all of us would agree, that the New Testament writers themselves understood Old Testament prophecy to have not a single but usually a triple fulfillment—past, present, and future. The past fulfillment was an immediate or historical fulfillment in the life of the nation of Israel. [...]
His Strange Work
Posted in God's character, judgment, to bless all families on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“I will bless you,” He said to Abraham (Gen 12:2). “God… sent Him [Jesus] to you first, to bless you,” echoed Peter (Acts 3:26). God’s attitude to His people is positive constructive, enriching. Judgment is His “strange work” (Isa 28:21). His principal and characteristic work is to bless people with salvation.
–John Stott
The Living God is [...]
A Plan
Posted in Jesus, John Stott, history, sovereignty on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
History is not a random flow of events. For God is working out in time a plan which He conceived in a past eternity and will consummate in a future eternity. In this historical process Jesus Christ, as the Seed of Abraham, is the key figure.
–John Stott
The Living God is a Missionary God
(Perspectives reader p. [...]
The Word Became Flesh
Posted in Incarnation, John Stott, contextualization, inspiration of Scripture on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Essentially the same principle is illustrated in both the inspiration of the Scripture and the incarnation of the Son. The Word became flesh. The divine was communicated through the human. He identified with us, though without surrendering His own identity. And this principle of “identification without loss of identity” is the model for all evangelism, [...]
God’s Condescension
Posted in Incarnation, John Stott, contextualization on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
What strikes us immediately is the greatness of God’s condescension. He had sublime truth to reveal about Himself and His Christ, His mercy and His justice, and His full salvation. And He chose to make this disclosure through the vocabulary and grammar of human language, through human beings, human images, and human cultures.
–John Stott
The Bible [...]
Guard and Interpret
Posted in John Stott, contextualization on March 17, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Since [the gospel] comes from God we must guard it; since it is intended for modern men and women we must interpret it.
–John Stott
The Bible in World Evangelization
(Perspectives Reader p. 23)
