If the focus of our testimony is our changed life, we as well as our hearers are bound to be disappointed.

Christians must return to the great story that has its fulfillment in life after death, so we may live and die well in the light of our extraordinary hope that enables us to embrace the ordinary lives God gives us here and now.

Our weaknesses are an opportunity for God to show his strength.

If we think the main mission of the church is to improve life in Adam and add a little moral strength to this fading evil age, we have not yet understood the radical condition for which Christ is such a radical solution.

You can't find a YouTube clip to become a craftsman, friend, parent - or disciple of Christ. It's all of grace. And to grow in that grace, you need two things: time and community.

The gospel is unintelligible to most people today, especially in the West, because their own particular stories are remote from the story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation that is narrated in the Bible. Our focus is introspective and narrow, confided to our own immediate knowledge, experience, and intuition. Trying desperately to get others, including God, to make us happy, we cannot seem to catch a glimpse of the real story that gives us a meaningful role.

God is not a supporting actor in our life movie. We exist for his purposes, not the other way around.