The Holy Spirit in enabling the already-justified believers to live with moral energy and will so that they really do please God again and again.

Tolerance is a cheap, low-grade parody of love. Tolerance is not a great virtue to aspire to. Love is much tougher and harder.

Arguments about God are like pointing a flashlight toward the sky to see if the sun is shining.

Often the Jesus-focused churches are leaning towards a 'social gospel' interpretation of the kingdom, and the 'Paul' churches are talking about being saved from sin and going to heaven. But when we understand both Jesus and Paul in their historical contexts within the first-century Jewish world, the issues become both more complex and ultimately (I believe) more clear.

One of the things I find depressing about some of the upper echelons of Anglicanism on both sides of the Atlantic is that it's sort of taken for granted that we all basically know what's in the Bible, and so we just glance at a few verses for devotional purposes and then get on to the real business.

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.

Certainly Paul shares the view of the Old Testament prophets that God will one day flood the world with justice and joy - and that this has begun to be fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus.