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 📚

Do you ever read a book so timely it is almost overwhelming? Something that grabs you by the soul and says, “LOOK!”

I am experiencing that right now with this little book.

Currently reading: The Tears of Things by Richard Rohr 📚

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

“Perhaps the single greatest threat is not the rise of secularism or the emptying of churches, but the apathy and indifference of the churches that are still here.”

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

Diving into some texts on power this week. Starting with this one and going from there.

I just bumped into this quote:

“When the Greeks got the gospel, they turned it into a philosophy;

when the Romans got it, they turned it into a government;

when the Europeans got it, they turned it into a culture;

and when the Americans got it, they turned it into a business.” Richard Halverson

This was such a fun read. I am excited to continue exploring this world in Oathbringer. Finished reading: Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson 📚

During the 1933 Prussian Synod Dietrich Bonhoeffer offered multiple theses to challenge the “Aryan Paragraph.” The “German Christians” were those aligning with the Nazi party, “We,” was the nascent Confessing Church.

Currently reading: The Bonhoeffer Reader by Michael P. DeJonge 📚

The German Christians say: The German church people can no longer endure communion with Jews, who have done them so much harm politically. We answer: This is the very point where it must be made crystal clear: here is where we are tested as to whether we know what the church is. Here, where the Jewish Christian whom I don't like is sitting next to me among the faithful, this is precisely where the church is. If that is not understood, then those who think they cannot bear it should themselves go and form their own church, but never, ever, can they be allowed to exclude someone else. The continuity of the church is in the church where the Jewish Christians remain.&10;Michael P. DeJonge, Clifford J. Green&10;The Bonhoeffer Reader&10;#kindlequotes

Another timely thought from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in response to the 1933 “Aryan Paragraph.”

Currently reading: The Bonhoeffer Reader by Michael P. DeJonge 📚

The German Christians say: We are not so much concerned with these thousand Jewish Christians as with the millions of our fellow citizens who are estranged from God. For their sake, these others might in certain cases have to be sacrificed. We answer: We too are concerned for those outside the church, but the church does not sacrifice a single one of its members. It may even be that the church, for the sake of a thousand believing Jewish Christians that it is not allowed to sacrifice, might fail to win over those millions. But what good would it do to gain millions of people at the price of the truth and of love for even a single one? This could represent not gain but only loss, for the church would no longer be the church. Michael P. DeJonge, Clifford J. Green The Bonhoeffer Reader #kindlequotes

Here’s the second of the theses that Bonhoeffer penned to challenge the Aryan Paragraph in 1933. Again, it reads as very timely for our moment in history.

Currently reading: The Bonhoeffer Reader by Michael P. DeJonge 📚

A quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The German Christians say:&10;We don't want to take away from Jewish Christians the right to be Christians, but they should organize their own churches. 6 It is only a matter of the outward form of the church.” M A quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “We answer: (1) The issue of belonging to the Christian community is never an outward, organizational matter, but is of the very substance of the church.&10;Church is the congregation that is called together by the Word.&10;Membership in a congregation is a question not of organization but of the essence of the church.”A quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “(2) To make such a basic distinction between Christianity and the church, or between Christ and the church, is wrong. There is no such thing as the idea of the church, on one hand, and its outward appearance, on the other, but rather the empirically experienced church is the church of Christ itself. Thus to exclude people forcibly from the church-community at the empirical level means excluding them from Christ's church itself. That part of the church that excludes another is, of course, the one that is truly shut out-that is the particular danger of the German Christians' undertaking.”A quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “(3) When the church's organizers exclude anyone, they are interfering with the authority of the sacraments. Here in our church, Jewish Christians have been accepted, by the will of God, through the sacrament of baptism. Through baptism they are joined together with our church, and our church with them, by indissoluble ties. If the church that has baptized Jewish Christians now throws them out, it makes baptism into a ceremony, which implies no obligation on its part.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer composed a number of talking points to refute what was known as the “Aryan Paragraph” in September of 1933. The paragraph excluded non-Aryans from civil service which was beginning to be adopted by German churches.

Currently reading: The Bonhoeffer Reader by Michael P. DeJonge 📚

The German Christians say: The church is not allowed to undo or to disregard God’s orders, and race is one of them, so the church must be racially constituted. We answer: The given order of race is misjudged just as little as that of gender, status in society, etc. . . . In the church, a Jew is still a Jew, a Gentile a Gentile, a man a man, a capitalist a capitalist, etc., etc. But God calls and gathers them all together into one people, the people of God, the church, and they all belong to it in the same way, one with another. The church is not a community of people who are all the same but precisely one of people foreign to one another who are called by God’s Word. The people of God is an order over and above all other orders. “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? . . . whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” [Matt. 12:48, 50]. Race and blood are one order among those who enter into the church, but it must never become a criterion for belonging to the church; the only criterion is the Word of God and faith. &10; &10;DeJonge, Michael P.; Green, Clifford J.. The Bonhoeffer Reader (Function). Kindle Edition.

This is such a timely read. Bonhoeffer’s writing is so highly applicable to our times.

Currently reading: The Bonhoeffer Reader by Michael P. DeJonge 📚

Unreal book deal right now…

NT Wright’s New Testament for Everyone complete 18 volume set is on sale for Kindle for $5.99!

John Goldingjay’s Old Testament for Everyone complete 17 volume set is on sale for Kindle for $5.99!

📚

From Bonhoeffer on the command to love our neighbor and enemy. This was from a talk he gave to a student organization at the end of 1932.

I am really bad at this. I need to grow.

I am still processing this quote from my reading last night. This is part of Bonhoeffer’s conclusion on a talk on the prayer, “Thy kingdom come.”

Too often the American Church has derided struggle as a sign of not keeping “in step with the Spirit.”

Yet, as we read the Scripture we see over and over again that struggle is central to inbreaking of the kingdom of God.

This is a quotation from Bonhoeffer’s catechism. It strikes me as very timely.

I’m really enjoying this book so far. I think it might make for a good preaching outline.

Currently reading: 15 New Testament Words of Life by Nijay K. Gupta 📚

Finished reading: Following Jesus by N. T. Wright 📚

I’m excited to share some quotes and notes from this little book. It is an excellent read!

"Yes, there was a whiff of triumph on Palm Sunday, but not the kind of triumph that might impress Rome and not the kind that impressed crowds in Jerusalem for long either. What manner of king was this?"

From: The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey 📚

This week, let us consider the different manner of king that Jesus was.

Jesus himself had mixed feelings during the clamorous parade. Luke reports that as he approached the city he began to weep. He knew how easily a mob could turn. Voices who shout “Hosanna!” one week can shriek “Crucify him!” the next.

From: The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey 📚

As we step into holy week this quote has been on my mind. Particularly, “how easily a mob could turn.”

Would I have turned?

Would I have shouted “Hosanna!” and then shrieked, “Crucify!”?

I know of no more poignant contrast between two human destinies than that of Peter and Judas. Both assumed leadership within the group of Jesus’ disciples. Both saw and heard wondrous things. Both went through the same dithery cycle of hope, fear, and disillusionment. As the stakes increased, both denied their Master.

From: The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey 📚

If this isn’t a “but by the grace of God go I,” I don’t know what is.

Jesus’ response to suffering people and to “nobodies” provides a glimpse into the heart of God. God is not the unmoved Absolute, but rather the Loving One who draws near.
from: [The Jesus I Never Knew](https://micro.blog/books/9780310295815) by Philip Yancey 📚

This might be one of the most challenging concepts for many American Christians to wrap our minds around. We have been told for so long that God is non-emotional. Yet, in the person of Jesus, we see God draw near in love. This is the consistent response of Jesus in the Gospels to the people who are on the “outside.”

Indeed, the kingdom of God will grow on earth as the church creates an alternative society demonstrating what the world is not, but one day will be: Barth’s prescription of “a new sign which is radically dissimilar to [the world’s] own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise.”
From: [The Jesus I Never Knew](https://micro.blog/books/9780310295815) by Philip Yancey 📚

I imagine this alternative society would look vastly different from what we see today.

I am 7% done with book and already there are quotes that will be used in a series of talks I am giving this weekend. Whew!

Currently reading: The Brothers Karamazov: A New Translation by Michael R. Katz by Fyodor Dostoevsky 📚

Jesus had but to give a nod of agreement and he could have constructed Christendom, not on four shaky Gospels and a defeated man nailed on a Cross, but on a basis of sound socioeconomic planning and principles. . . . Every utopia could have been brought to pass, every hope have been realized and every dream been made to come true. What a benefactor, then, Jesus would have been. Acclaimed, equally, in the London School of Economics and the Harvard Business School; a statue in Parliament Square, and an even bigger one on Capitol Hill and in the Red Square. . . . Instead, he turned the offer down on the ground that only God should be worshipped.

The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey 📚

Jesus: “Nah, I don’t want Christendom.”

The American Church: “Hold my grape juice.”

As I look back on the three temptations, I see that Satan proposed an enticing improvement. He tempted Jesus toward the good parts of being human without the bad: to savor the taste of bread without being subject to the fixed rules of hunger and of agriculture, to confront risk with no real danger, to enjoy fame and power without the prospect of painful rejection—in short, to wear a crown but not a cross.

From: The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey 📚

As I continue to consider this, I am confronted with my own desire to wear a crown and not a cross.