May 15, 2012 • 21 notes • invisibleforeigner

We all know that most beloved verse in the scripture, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” But we also know that, if it was that simple, we wouldn’t need the rest of the Bible. The poignancy of what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego say to Nebuchadnezzar is finally not just what we say to a skeptic, or to a person in pain, or to ourselves, but what the members of the Trinity say to one another. When Jesus goes to the fire, when Jesus faces the flames of hell for us, when Jesus hangs on the cross, what does he say to the Father? Is it so different from the words of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? “If you will to deliver me from the cross, O Father, then take this cup away from me. But even if not, be it known to you, O Father, that my love for you will hang on forever, and that those who somehow find that they have lost you can hang onto me.” Isn’t that what makes Jesus’ final words so wondrous? Jesus loves us so much that he goes to the cross even if there’s no certainty of
resurrection. Jesus isn’t just keeping his side of the bargain. Jesus is loving even if not. That’s the definition of love.

We’ve come face to face with God. We’ve come to the foot of the cross, the heart of Jesus. We’ve come to the definition of love. It lies in those four little words: “But even if not.”

Those words are the heart of God. Make them the heart of your life. Make them the heart of your faith. Make them the heart of your love. Make them the whole of your vocation. In them you will find God. But even if not, in them, God will find you.

Sam Wells, But Even If Not (via invisibleforeigner)
May 5, 2012 • 17 notes • beauty-for-ashes
My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself.
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed  (via beauty-for-ashes)
April 23, 2012 • 2 notes • hargaden
‘Blessings on the poor in spirit! The kingdom of heaven is yours’ (Matthew 5:3) doesn’t mean, ‘You will go to heaven when you die.’ It means *you will be one of those through whom God’s kingdom, heaven’s rule, begins to appear on earth as in heaven. The Beatitudes are the agenda for kingdom-people. They are not simply about how to behave, so that God will do something nice *to* you. They are about the way in which Jesus wants to rule the world. He wants to do it *through* this sort of people - people, actually, just like himself.
Tom Wright, Simply Jesus, p. 216. (via hargaden)
April 15, 2012 • 17 notes • invisibleforeigner
We want the Jesus that comes down from the cross. This Jesus will not come down from the cross. This Jesus bears all things, endures all things, and never ends….This is not the God we want. But it’s the God we need.
Sam Wells, Be Not Afraid (via invisibleforeigner)

(via invisibleforeigner)

April 4, 2012 • 7 notes • invisibleforeigner
The center, the day, that gives meaning to all days and therefore to all time, is that yearly commemoration of Christ’s Resurrection at Easter. This is always the end and the beginning. We are always living after Easter, and we are always going toward Easter.
Alexander Schmemann, Easter in the Liturgical Year (via invisibleforeigner)

(via invisibleforeigner)

April 2, 2012 • 17 notes • invisibleforeigner
We worship the God of Easter morning, therefore, only because he is first and last the God of Good Friday, the God of Golgotha, the God of Lent.
Ralph C. Wood, Preaching and Professing (via invisibleforeigner)

(via invisibleforeigner)

March 17, 2012 • 23 notes • invisibleforeigner
No Christian is in a position to say to any other, “I have no need of you.” Every Christian needs to listen to the stories of those who see things differently, have been pushed out or felt they had to leave. Church means calling together Christians of all kinds, in all ways, across all barriers, and bringing them face-to-face, and holding them there in the presence of God, until they say to one another, “I need you.
Sam Wells, Be Not Afraid (via invisibleforeigner)
March 16, 2012 • 60 notes • invisibleforeigner
The climax of the gospel contains two great miracles. One is obvious, the one that God did - the miracle of resurrection. The other is subtler, and it comes right at this moment in Matthew’s Gospel. It is the miracle of what Jesus didn’t do. He didn’t come down from the cross. He stayed there. He outlasted our hatred and cruelty and enmity. After everything humanity could throw at him, physically and verbally, he was still there. His endurance demonstrated the love that will never let us go. His perseverance demonstrated that nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Sam Wells, Be Not Afraid (via invisibleforeigner)
March 4, 2012 • 1 note
As the Gospel of Mark reports, the first disciples followed, and were scandalized. Yet they continued to tell the story of the cross, including the account of how they abandoned the Crucified. Why? Because precisely in the scandal, they have discovered a promise. In serving and giving themselves for others, in lamenting and protesting before the dark face of God, they found themselves in the company of the Crucified…
On the scandal of the Cross; Miroslav Volf - Exclusion and Embrace
February 29, 2012 • 33 notes • invisibleforeigner
Si comprehendis, non est Deus.
St. Augustine (via invisibleforeigner)

(via invisibleforeigner)

February 20, 2012 • 4 notes • hargaden
It is not ‘complicated’ thinking which is doctrinaire, but that must-praised ‘simplicity’. Men think ‘simply’ when they pretend to know what they do not know.
Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 425. (via hargaden)
February 5, 2012

Volf’s Exclusion & Embrace

My copy just arrived courtesy of my parents…I may have squealed with joy and giddily danced about in my kitchen when I got it…I swear, I’m not normally this crazy, but when the theologian in me takes control, I’ve been known do some ridiculous things…

January 29, 2012 • 12 notes • invisibleforeigner
I believe that the word gospel has been hijacked by what we believe about ‘personal salvation,’ and the gospel itself has been reshaped to facilitate making ‘decisions.’ The results of this hijacking is that the word gospel no longer means in our world what it originally meant to either Jesus or the apostles.
Scot McKnight, The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited (via invisibleforeigner)
January 25, 2012 • 14 notes • invisibleforeigner
For where shall the likeness of God be found? There is no quality that space has in common with the essence of God. There is not enough freedom on the top of the mountain; there is not enough glory in the silence of the sea. Yet the likeness of God can be found in time, which is eternity in disguise.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Sabbath (via invisibleforeigner)
January 24, 2012

Questions/Queries/Opinions

Thought I’d give this a go…feel free to ask about anything whatsoever…