Casey Taylor

“I have suggested that the unity-within-diversity of the New Testament witnesses can best be grasped with the aid of three focal images: community, cross, and new creation. We can encapsulate the theological implications of these images for the church in a single complex narrative summary: the New Testament calls the covenant community of God’s people into participation in the cross of Christ in such a way that the death and resurrection of Jesus becomes a paradigm for their common life as harbingers of God’s new creation.”
― 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

“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

“Scriptures are not to be pitted against the Spirit. Scripture can be understood only through the same Spirit whereby it is given.31 The Scriptures, inspired by the Spirit, form the written rule by which the Spirit thereafter leads us into all truth.32”
― Thomas C. Oden, John Wesley's Teachings, Volume 1: God and Providence