think about the way God rules. He doesn't do it by sending in the tanks. He does it by calling servants.

Christmas is God lighting a candle; and you don't light a candle in a room that's already full of sunlight. You light a candle in a room that's so murky that the candle, when lit, reveals just how bad things really are.

Our culture is so fixated on dying and going to heaven when the whole Scripture is about heaven coming to earth.

the word 'justification' has itself had a chequered career over the course of many centuries of debate. As the major historian of the doctrine has noted, the word has long since ceased to mean, in ecclesial debates, what it meant for Paul himself - which is confusing, since the debates have gone on referring to Paul as though he was in fact talking about what they want to talk about. It is as though the greengrocer treated you to a long discussion of how onions are grown, and how best to cook with them, when what you had asked was how much he would charge for three of them.

One of the reasons we do history, in fact, is because it acts as a brake, a control, on our otherwise unbridled enthusiasm for our own ideas.

When I was at seminary in my early twenties, one of my teachers said to me, "You're going to have to decide. Either you're going to be an academic or you're going to be a pastor. You can't be both." I remember thinking, Rats! I want to be both! Why are you telling me I can't do these two things?And so I have kind of oscillated to and always wanted to do both.

The call of the gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love.