Casey Taylor

“the ethic envisioned by the New Testament writers is not an impossible ideal. If we fail to live in obedient responsiveness to their moral vision, that is because of a failure of the imagination—or perhaps a lack of courage—on our part.”
― Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics

“Anyone who is not a continual student of Jesus, and who nevertheless reads the great promises of the Bible as if they were for him or her, is like someone trying to cash a check on another person’s account. At best, it succeeds only sporadically.”
― Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: A Study of Spiritual Reality in Christian Thought

“The gospel is not a summary of “the necessary truths of reason”; rather, it is a revelation that shatters and reshapes human reason in light of God’s foolishness. The Word is known in contingent human form, and only there. That is the scandal of the gospel.”
― Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics

“So, basically, to put off the old person and put on the new we only follow Jesus into the activities that he engaged in to nurture his own life in relation to the Father. Of course, his calling and mission was out of all proportion to ours, and he never had our weaknesses, which result from our long training in sin. But his use of solitude, silence, study of scripture, prayer, and service to others all had a disciplinary aspect in his life. And we can be very sure that what he found useful for conduct of his life in the Father will also be useful for us. It was an important day in my life when at last I understood that if he needed forty days in the wilderness at one point, I very likely could use three or four.”
― Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: A Study of Spiritual Reality in Christian Thought