Rob Noland

“Just as all life begins with the gratuity of the unnecessary creation, all new life begins with the gratuity of Christ’s voluntary self-giving on the cross. Both creation and new creation are justified not by necessity but by love: nowhere in the Bible does it say that God so calculated profit and loss that he gave his only Son. The cross is not adequately explained by all that came before it, just as the creation of the universe is not adequately explained by all that comes after it. Both events are grounded in God’s freely given love.”
― Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture

“We should not become weary of doing little things for the love of God. God regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which the work is done.”
― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God In Modern English

“When human parents named a child in the ancient world, they would use the name to indicate what they hoped the child would become; when God names someone he names them according to what he knows they will become.”
― Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture

“Resting in the calm eye of a storm raging all around him, Noah is saved in the ark as the flood surges over the land. In the flood narrative it is God who saves Noah from God. In the midst of the torrent of his own raging justice God places a floating ship of mercy.”
― Christopher Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture