Quotes from Inhabiting the Cruciform God

“To paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer, parts of the Christian church have become enamored with cheap justification. Cheap justification is justification without justice, faith without love, declaration without transformation.” p41

“So what is justification for Paul? For Pual, I would contend, justification means the establishment or restoration of right covenant relations, both “verticial” or theological (toward God) and also, inseparably, “horizontal” or social (toward others) – what Paul most frequently calls “pistis” and “agape” – with the certain hope of ultimate vindication and glory, all understood in light of, and experienced through, Christ and the Spirit.” p52-3

“Justification for Paul may be defined as follows: the establishment or restoration of right covenantal relations – fidelity to God and love for neighbour – with the certain hope of acquittal/vindication on the day of judgement.” p53

Gorman, Michael J. Inhabiting the Cruciform God : Kenosis, Justification, and Theosis in Paul’s Narrative Soteriology. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2009.

Quotes from John Piper – The Future of Justification

“We all wear colored glasses – most wear glasses colored by tradition; some wear glasses colored by anti-tradition; and some wear glasses colored by our emerging, new reconstruction of reality. Which of these ways of seeing the world is more seductive, I don’t know. Since they exist in differing degrees, from one time to the next, probably any of them can be overpowering at a given moment.” p17

Piper, John. The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright. Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2008.

(I didn’t read this entire book cover to cover, I read it alongside of N.T Wright’s Justification)

Sitting in the space

I’ve come to this belief that, if you show me a woman who can sit with a man in real vulnerability, in deep fear, and be with him in it, I will show you a woman who, A, has done her work and, B, does not derive her power from that man. And if you show me a man who can sit with a woman in deep struggle and vulnerability and not try to fix it, but just hear her and be with her and hold space for it, I’ll show you a guy who’s done his work and a man who doesn’t derive his power from controlling and fixing everything.
Brené Brown


Anne Lamott on Life Truths

I stumbled upon Anne Lamott one morning thanks to Brené Brown and her blog post on being sober. The quote that Brené used of Anne made me sit up and listen:

“Help is the sunny side of control. Stop helping so much. Don’t get your help and goodness all over everybody.”

12 truths I learned from life and writing

Check out Anne’s TED talk: 12 truths I learned from life and writing

Brené Brown on Being Sober

Brené Brown writes about her being sober for 23 years. Recently I discovered that I had a socially acceptable form of addiction. – Solving problems that aren’t mine to be solved. It’s been about a month of ‘being sober’ for me, and I’m already starting to see the positive affects. My mantra “this isn’t my problem to solve”.

https://brenebrown.com/articles/2019/05/31/what-being-sober-has-meant-to-me/

Theology of Play – Jurgen Moltmann

“Conditioned and regulated man needs his nightly whodunit on television. There he vicariously experiences adventure which has long since vanished from his monotonous world. In the Western here, the average man in house slippers can see himself once more as an image of virile strength. Tourism supplements a world deprived of experiences with “the sights and sounds of faraway places.” Colorful posters promise encounters with strange lands and strange customs, but at the camping places and beaches we do in fact meet people exactly like ourselves, and hardly ever does anyone escape his own circles”.
p8

Moltmann, Jurgen, Robert E. Neale, David L. Miller, and Sam Keen. Theology of Play. (1st ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1972.)

Quote – Vehicles of discovery

“we are inclined to forget that the arts – even when they are decorative, entertaining or self-expressive – can be vehicles of discovery, not just of ourselves, but of other people and indeed of virtually anything with which we engage from day to day, from physical objects to grand ideas.” p1

Sounding the Depths, Theology Through the Arts. Jeremy Begbie
scm press

God’s default is slow

German Forester Peter Wohlleben recently (2015) published a book “The Hidden Life of Trees”, and while it’s primarily about the intelligence that some scientists are finding within trees in connected communities in forests, I found a glimpse of how God handles time. Early on in the book, Wohlleben explains how a “mother tree” nurtures a “child tree” for decades. It’s not uncommon for a mother tree to restrict the growth of the child for 80 years. The life time of trees isn’t measured in decades, like a human life, it’s measured in hundreds of years.

I’m not quite sure where I heard this quote recently, but it’s been knocking around in my head:

God’s default is slow

How true I found this quote to be while reading about the processes involved in the life of a tree in a forest lasting hundreds of years. I found this to be a perfect metaphor on how God thinks about time.

It is easy to complain that yesterday’s prayer hasn’t been answered, but when we turn to the bible, we see story after story of large periods of time when God was seemingly inactive, he may have even provided someone with a promise, but it takes time for that promise to come to fruition.

As a 28 year old, I find comfort in hearing others stories when they say that they didn’t start doing ‘there thing’ until they were in their early thirties. While I’m mindful that if there is any chance of seeing a generation in front of any children that I might be blessed to have in the future, God might need to get a wriggle on in the relationship department. I still have time on my side.

That said, I also don’t want to waste time. It’s a precious resource.

Life comes in movements, or seasons. While sometimes I want to be in the next season, try as hard as we might, in order to get through winter into summer, we must go through winter and spring. And in the waiting, character is developed. Just as a mother tree nurtures their child for decades, so that the child can build strength and resilience, so that when the time is right, it can grow into the tree it was destined to be.

A song that talks about waiting on the apparent slowness of God: Take Courage, the chorus goes like this:

[Chorus]
So take courage my heart
Stay steadfast my soul
He’s in the waiting
He’s in the waiting
And hold onto your hope
As your triumph unfolds
He’s never failing
He’s never failing

Waiting can suck. Apparently it’s worth it.

Questions to ask God – Preshan John

Preshan John’s Sermon On Being Hungry.

This was his list of questions at the end of his sermon as the ‘application’. While I found the list a little overwhelming, I think asking oneself one of these questions/ statements every so often during a prayer time would be helpful.

  • God show me something about Yourself I haven’t seen before.
  • Teach me something from your word I haven’t learnt before.
  • Use me in a way You haven’t used me before.
  • Speak to me in a way You haven’t spoken to me before.
  • Minister a spiritual gift that I haven’t used before.
  • Help me to obey You where I haven’t obeyed you before.
  • Challenge me in an area that I haven’t been challenged in before.

Quotes from ‘The Substance of Things Seen’ – Robin Jensen

A handful of quotes from Robin Jensen’s book, ‘The Substance of Things Seen’. Within this short book, Robin shows the importance of art in the history of the church, and how it still relates today.

“Straight lines are only in mathematics. Creation is full of crooked, broken, or curly lines.” p11

“Art is an activity that gives form to the abstract, brings it out into the external world, so that it may be seen and judged.” p18

“Stories or texts are understood to bear a variety of meanings, depending on the context and the audience’s level of sophistication and spiritual discernment. Visual art that draws from these narratives operates in the same fashion. Sometimes the images are edited, abbreviated, juxtaposed, or transformed to make the point.” p40

“Visual images raise special concerns, not only because we might mistake earthly things for the spiritual truths they point to but because of their great power.” p74

“The illustrations in a Sunday school curriculum, the fronts of bulletin covers, and the illustrations attached to daily meditation manuals all affect the ways people hear or read their sacred stories and shape their conception of the divine.” p91

Jensen, Robin Margaret. The Substance of Things Seen: Art, Faith, and the Christian Community. Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies Series. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2004.