“in general, religiously observant people were offended by Jesus, but those estranged from religious and moral observance were intrigued and attracted to him. We see this throughout the New Testament accounts of Jesus’s life. In every case where Jesus meets a religious person and a sexual outcast (as in Luke 7) or a religious person and a racial outcast (as in John 3-4) or a religious person and a political outcast (as in Luke 19), the outcast is the one who connects with Jesus and the elder-brother type does not. Jesus says to the respectable religious leaders “the tax collectors and the prostitutes enter the kingdom before you” (Matthew 21:31).”
― The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
― The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
“Your computer operates automatically in a default mode unless you deliberately tell it to do something else. So Luther says that even after you are converted by the gospel your heart will go back to operating on other principles unless you deliberately, repeatedly set it to gospel-mode.”
― The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
― The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
“Do you realize, then, what Jesus is teaching? Neither son loved the father for himself. They both were using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving, enjoying, and serving him for his own sake. This means that you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently.”
― The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
― The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
Jim’s 2025 Year in Books
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