Home > Work > One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow
1 " We need to shed our unearthly and nonsocial and idealistic and romantic and uber-spiritual visions of kingdom and get back to what Jesus meant. By kingdom, Jesus means: God's Dream Society on earth, spreading out from the land of Israel to encompass the whole world. "
― Scot McKnight , One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow
2 " Those who aren't following Jesus aren't his followers. It's that simple. Followers follow, and those who don't follow aren't followers. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus into a society where justice rules, where love shapes everything. To follow Jesus means to take up his dream and work for it. "
3 " Too many people think repenting means feeling terrible about something someone has done. Feeling bad is fine, and it often accompanies repentance, but repentance is not so much about what we feel but the twofold prong of owning up to our own injustices and failures to love, and starting all over by living justly and lovingly. "
4 " Here’s our problem today. Not only do we not like ultimatums, but we have too many Christians who have accepted Jesus into their hearts and who have been baptized and who have confessed their sins and who have joined the Church and who are in Bible studies and who are absolutely 100 percent convinced they are going to heaven, but who are not followers of Jesus. There are many who haven’t made it real. The mark of a follower of Jesus is following. The mark of a follower of Jesus is that she or he has given Jesus her or his heart. It’s that simple. It’s that demanding. It’s that serious. Jesus was a moral zealot and he expected his followers to become moral zealots too. He wanted them to live the Committed. Life. "
5 " Community is like peace in that it is a result instead of an action. Peace results from acts of justice and behaviors of love. Community also emerges out of loving behaviors—like compassion and an embrace and forgiveness — and out of acts of justice. "
6 " On the basis of what the New Testament does say, the final home should not be called “heaven” but instead the “new heavens and the new earth,” and this makes a significant difference for understanding that what we do now really does matter—for we will continue doing it on the other side of life after death. "
7 " A Christian is someone who follows Jesus by devoting his or her One. Life to the kingdom vision of Jesus. "
8 " By kingdom, Jesus means: God’s Dream Society on earth, spreading out from the land of Israel to encompass the whole world. In our terms today, Jesus was ultimately talking about the Church as the partial and imperfect manifestation of the kingdom of God. What this means is so important: When Jesus was talking about the kingdom of God, he was thinking of concrete realities on the earth, he was thinking of the Church being the embodiment of the Jesus dream, and he was thinking of you and I living together in a community as we should. "
9 " Many think Jesus came to earth so you and I can have a special kind of spiritual experience and then go merrily along, as long as we pray and read our Bibles and develop intimacy with the unseen God but ignore the others-oriented life of justice and love and peace that Jesus embodied. "
10 " Jesus thought he was anointed by God to proclaim the gospel to the poor and to proclaim freedom for prisoners and recovered sight for the blind and to set the oppressed free. This is why he came. "
11 " The question: What is a Christian? My answer: A Christian is someone who follows Jesus* My former answer: A Christian is someone who has accepted Jesus, and the Christian life focuses on personal practices of piety. "
12 " It is far too easy to be critical. It is far harder to have a better idea. "
13 " God’s dream is the kingdom, that’s already clear. But what is not always clear is that God’s kingdom happens when human beings are empowered by God’s Spirit to do God’s kingdom work in the shape of a new community. "
14 " As seminary students Jim and friends examined the Bible to find every reference to the poor — and they found more than two thousand. In fact, they concluded one of every sixteen verses was about the poor. Then a zealous friend decided to cut out every Bible verse about the poor to see what the Bible would look like. As he tells the story, “that old Bible literally was in shreds. It wouldn’t hold together. It was a Bible full of holes. "
15 " A person is a person through other persons. "
16 " Flannery O’Connor—it’s right, but it ain’t right enough. "
17 " (I hope at some time you can read J. R. R. Tolkien’s brilliant short story called “Leaf by Niggle,” because I can think of no better description of the continuity of this life in the New Heavens and the New Earth.) "
18 " If you want to know how Jesus understands the Christian life, the place to begin is with what he means by kingdom of God. "
19 " To reveal what the kingdom of God is like, Jesus tells parables. And these parables usher his listeners and readers into a world he called kingdom. "
20 " There’s a difference between focusing on being right and focusing on being a follower of Jesus. "
