Despise not thy neighbor, but think thyself as bad a sinner, and that the like defects may befall thee. If thou canst not excuse his doing, excuse his intent which may be good; or if the deed be evil, think it was done of ignorance; if thou canst no way excuse him, think some great temptation befell him, and that thou shouldst be worse if the like temptation befell thee; and give God thanks that the like as yet hath not befallen thee. Despise not a man being a sinner, for though he be evil today, he may turn tomorrow.

The holy soul is the love of God, the joy of angels; her eyes dare look upon the glorious Judge whom she knows to be her Savior. Her heart is courageous; she dares stand the thunder; and when guilty minds creep into corners, she is confident in him that he will defend her. She challenges the whole world to accuse her of injustice, and fears not the subornation of false witnesses, because she knows the testimony of her own conscience. Her language is free and bold, without the guiltiness of broken stops. Her forehead is clear and smooth, as the brow of heaven. Her knees are ever bent to the throne of grace; her feet traveling towards Jerusalem; her hands weaving the web of righteousness. Good men bless her; good angels guard her; the Son of God doth kiss her; and when all the world shall be turned to a burning pile, she shall be brought safe to the mountain of joy, and set in a throne of blessedness for ever.

Tolle lege.

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I believe the pastor-theologian should be evangelicalism’s most conspicuous public intellectual, ministering understanding by theologically interpreting the Bible, bringing text in canonical context to bear on contemporary context. In this great task, doctrine is the pastor’s best friend.

- Kevin Vanhoozer, Page Lectures at Southeastern Seminary,  Nov, 2009.

HT: JT

Paul’s prayer is that the Ephesians would, together, be rooted and established in love.It is the only way they can be filled with all the fullness and power of God. As isolated individuals, we cannot reach the level of maturity God has designed for us. It only happens as we live in a loving, redemptive community where we celebrate the many facets of the gospel. When we look…to Ephesians 4, we see that Paul follows his prayer [of Ephesians 3:14-21] with all sorts of practical instructions on how to pursue and preserve the unity of this community. Our personal transformation must be worked out within the family of God. The gospel is not only more clearly perceived and experienced within community; it is the basis for community!

-Timothy Lane and Paul David Tripp, How People Change, p. 85

The way to the kingdom is the way of the cross, and vice versa – as long as you remember that “the kingdom,” once again, is not “heaven,” but the state of affairs in which God’s kingdom has come, and his will is being done, on earth as in heaven.

- N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, p. 116.

Jesus is not going about announcing “God is becoming king!” into neutral territory, like an explorer annexing land that was previously unoccupied. He is announcing God’s sovereign and saving rule, and doing things which demonstrate its presence and power, in a world already governed by hostile powers, powers which to our horror include the ruling officials of God’s people itself, not least the royal and priestly elites, and also the popular pressure groups and the revolutionary movement within Israel – in addition, of course, to the powers of the pagan world. Saying that God was becoming king, in first-century Palestine, was a way of saying that Israel’s God was dethroning pagan overlords and rescuing his people; but the people themselves, it seems, had become part of the problem. But, since the whole point of God’s saving rule, as Jesus understood it, is that it is the saving rule of this God – the God of gentle, generous, overwhelming love, whose kingdom-way was already articulated in the Sermon on the Mount – it cannot be established by force majeure, but only by its proper means: suffering, self-giving love. Hence the deep-level integration of the message of the kingdom and the vocation of the cross. And hence the deep-level resistance, within Western culture, to such an integration, at any level. We have preferred our kingdoms to be of a different sort, and have preferred to see the shameful death of Jesus as bringing about a purely heavenly “salvation.”

- N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, p. 113.