On to a new book... one which I've already read and dramatically convicted me. I felt like reading it again - I started it in the Philippines but never finished it, so I started it over again today :) I'm already 3 chapters in and quickly reminded how powerful the book is.
In the midst of talking about how its hard to truly find a Jesus follower, how we stopped living Christianity and now we just study it... how we skip over certain parts of the Bible because we don't want to do what they say... or we don't want to do them to that level (his biggest focus is on taking care of the poor - giving all we have to them). He then quotes Soren Kierkegaard:
I won't say that I agree completely with everything Kierkegaard said but he makes a good point. We're never going to win the whole world to Christ until we really start living the gospel. This would be dramatic and radical lifestyle changes for myself and so many others. This summer i've learned to cut back so much - lesson especially learned from living out of a suitcase for what's going on 2.5 months total now. I hope I can keep this up and continue to cut back. My life is so much simpler when my "stuff" is simpler. I don't want to collect meaningless things.
In the midst of talking about how its hard to truly find a Jesus follower, how we stopped living Christianity and now we just study it... how we skip over certain parts of the Bible because we don't want to do what they say... or we don't want to do them to that level (his biggest focus is on taking care of the poor - giving all we have to them). He then quotes Soren Kierkegaard:
The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very esasy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to undersatnd it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, the ensrue that we can continue to be good Christians wihtout the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.
I won't say that I agree completely with everything Kierkegaard said but he makes a good point. We're never going to win the whole world to Christ until we really start living the gospel. This would be dramatic and radical lifestyle changes for myself and so many others. This summer i've learned to cut back so much - lesson especially learned from living out of a suitcase for what's going on 2.5 months total now. I hope I can keep this up and continue to cut back. My life is so much simpler when my "stuff" is simpler. I don't want to collect meaningless things.
I am content. I am satisfied.
"It is among the wealthy that we can find the most terrible poverty of all - loneliness" - Mother Teresa
"Jesus never says to the poor, 'Come find the church,' but he says to those of us in the church, 'Go into the world and find the poor, hungry, homeless, imprisoned,' Jesus in his disguises." - Tony Campolo
When the Bible says "Thy Kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven" that's not something only to expect to come true... its something to enact and live out.
This post doesn't do the book justice.
You should pick it up and read it yourself....
"Irresistible Revolution" AND The Bible!
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