Posts in "Quotes and Notes"

Currently reading: Slow Theology by A. J. Swoboda 📚

This book! Whew.

“Few things shape us more than the questions we spend our life pondering… the deepest questions do not necessarily deserve quick answers. In fact, the quick answer very well may cheapen the sacredness of a holy question.”

Currently reading: Slow Theology by A. J. Swoboda 📚

This might be the single most challenging book I’ve read in the last few years. The good kind of conviction on every page.

Currently reading: Slow Theology by A. J. Swoboda and Nijay Gupta 📚

I just read this: “To pursue Jesus is to pursue truth.”

As I ponder that it strikes me again that that to point people to truth is simply pointing the toward Jesus. Which means if we seek to do that, we must do our best to mirror Jesus to the world.

Oh, how I woefully fall short. May God have mercy.

I am just beginning: Slow Theology by A. J. Swoboda and Nijay Gupta 📚

Oh boy, this book is going to be so good and so very challenging. I am excited!

The kingdom of God is not in the wisdom of the world, nor in eloquence, but in the faith of the cross and in the virtue of dialogue. — St. Cyprian

I bumped into this quote in C Christopher Smith’s, The Virtue of Dialogue. It really resonates with me and I think it is quite timely.

Oh, this is excellent from @bjhess:

[A Bit Naive](https://bjhess.com/posts/a-bit-naive)

What I wouldn’t give right now to be a bit more naive.

What I wouldn’t give for all of us to be a bit more naive.

A bit less social media.

A bit less 24-hour news.

Your Yes to God demands your No to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and the poor, to all godlessness and mocking of the holy. Your Yes to God demands a brave No to everything that will ever hinder you from serving God alone, whether it be your profession, your property, your house, your honor before the world. Faith means decision.

  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Gift of Faith, 1938

Diving into this text seems appropriate at this point in calendar…

Currently reading: America’s God by Mark A. Noll 📚

I am going to be writing through some things from this book, The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt 📚.

I think Haidt has much to say to help us understand the moment we find ourselves in.

A century later, Christian teacher Origen challenged the Caesarean Christians of his time not to blur the powers. "For you who are redeemed by Christ... a physical sword has been removed from your hands... In its place the 'sword of the Spirit' has been given and you must seize it." For Origen, Christians are to fight the evil powers by means of *prayers and fasts, justice and piety, gentleness, chastity and all the virtues of self control."

Currently reading: Reckoning with Power by David E. Fitch 📚

“Failure is the mark of a life well lived. In turn, the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone.”

Currently reading: Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson 📚

I just finished reading Jesus and the Powers by NT Wright and Michael Bird it was challenging and encouraging in all the right ways. I am going to do a little write up on it soon.

Finished reading: Jesus and the Powers by N. T. Wright 📚