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Theology Questions Everyone Asks: Christian Faith in Plain Language QUOTES

Theology Questions Everyone Asks: Christian Faith in Plain Language QUOTES

1 " Evangelicals tend to be “crucicentric,” which means “centered on the cross.” And we fail to see the comprehensive nature of Christ’s work. As the early Christian bishop Irenaeus once argued, Christ moved through all stages of human life and experience and in this sense, recapitulated the life lived by humans. His holy obedience at every stage of human life created the possibility of a perfect humanity which he presented to the Father in his ascension. In his saving work, Jesus then became the author of a restored human race, something the world had never seen before. "

― Gary M. Burge , Theology Questions Everyone Asks: Christian Faith in Plain Language

2 " Here is how Basil of Caesarea puts it: “When the Lord taught us the doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, . . . He blessed us with the knowledge given us by faith, by means of holy Names.”9 In other words: The one name of the one God is the threefold name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So, why do we address the Father as “Father”? Because Jesus did (John 17:1). Because this is the name of the first Person of the Trinity—and for no other reason. "

― Gary M. Burge , Theology Questions Everyone Asks: Christian Faith in Plain Language

3 " One of the odd features of the Christian life, and Scripture more broadly, is that times of suffering and sin can be renarrated in our ongoing progress as God’s people such that failures become a source of joy and thanksgiving as they set forth more clearly the mercy of Christ. "

― Gary M. Burge , Theology Questions Everyone Asks: Christian Faith in Plain Language

4 " The theologian Karl Barth spoke of religion as humanity’s faulty attempts to try to understand God on their own, while Jesus Christ is God’s self-disclosing revelation. "

― Gary M. Burge , Theology Questions Everyone Asks: Christian Faith in Plain Language

5 " That is why we began with a discussion on how to speak of God properly. Throughout our discussion we have seen that the witness of Scripture is consistent: God is simple (that is, not composed of parts), immutable, impassible, infinite, and that essence and existence are identical in God. It ought to be clear, then, that God does not have a genotype whose phenotypical expression would indicate maleness, like it does for us. Since God is not part of a category, it follows that God cannot be part of the category designated by the noun “male. "

― Gary M. Burge , Theology Questions Everyone Asks: Christian Faith in Plain Language

6 " It is possible to be outside God’s revealed will—by oppressing the poor, for instance, or rejecting the authority of Scripture—but we cannot, by definition, be outside God’s hidden will. Such a distinction entails both a warning and a promise. On the one hand, God does grant us the freedom to make decisions, and a repeated pattern of active disobedience against God may well result in our final separation from him. Herod and Pontius Pilate acted according to the “will” of God, but we do not want to follow their example (Acts 4:27-28). "

― Gary M. Burge , Theology Questions Everyone Asks: Christian Faith in Plain Language

7 " Mary Daly so provocatively noted the incipient nature of this danger when she exclaimed: “If God is male, then the male is God.”7 "

― Gary M. Burge , Theology Questions Everyone Asks: Christian Faith in Plain Language