Josh

“Reality is not only who God is and what he creates; reality is also how God and creation relate. Reality is chock-full of relationships: God with God; God with angels; God with Satan; God with demons; God with nature; God with mankind; angels with God; angels with angels; angels with Satan; angels with demons; angels with mankind; mankind with God; mankind with angels; mankind with Satan; mankind with demons; mankind with nature; mankind with mankind. And on and on. The intrigue of all these relationships writes the storyline of reality. Reality can be pictured simply as dots and lines. The dots are the entities of reality; the lines are the interactions and relationships between the entities.”
― Michael Matthews, A Novel Approach: The Significance of Story in Interpreting and Communicating Reality

“As sinners we are like addicts - addicted to ourselves and our own projects. The theology of glory simply seeks to give those projects eternal legitimacy. The remedy for the theology of glory, therefore, cannot be encouragement and positive thinking, but rather the end of the addictive desire. Luther says it directly: "The remedy for curing desire does not lie in satisfying it, but in extinguishing it." So we are back to the cross, the radical intervention, end of the life of the old and the beginning of the new.

Since the theology of glory is like addiction and not abstract doctrine, it is a temptation over which we have no control in and of ourselves, and from which we must be saved. As with the addict, mere exhortation and optimistic encouragement will do no good. It may be intended to build up character and self-esteem, but when the addict realizes the impossibility of quitting, self-esteem degenerates all the more. The alcoholic will only take to drinking in secret, trying to put on the facade of sobriety. As theologians of glory we do much the same. We put on a facade of religious propriety and piety and try to hide or explain away or coddle our sins....

As with the addict there has to be an intervention, an act from without. In treatment of alcoholics some would speak of the necessity of 'bottoming out,' reaching the absolute bottom where one can no longer escape the need for help. Then it is finally evident that the desire can never be satisfied, but must be extinguished. In matters of faith, the preaching of the cross is analogous to that intervention. It is an act of God, entirely from without. It does not come to feed the religious desires of the Old Adam and Eve but to extinguish them. They are crucified with Christ to be made new.”
― Gerhard O. Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther's Heidelberg Disputation, 1518

“It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch.”
― Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism

“I did not read the Bible to find Jesus but to answer the question, what should I do? I read indiscriminately and was often confused by scriptures that seemed to contradict each other. My solution was to go for balance: A little of this, a little of that, for all scripture is profitable. But by failing to filter what I read through the finished work of the cross, I unwittingly poisoned myself. I mixed the death-dealing words of the law with the life-giving words of grace. I thought I was zealous for the Lord, but in truth I was lukewarm. I was neither under the stone-cold ministry of the law nor walking in the white-hot heat of God’s love and grace.”
― Paul Ellis, Grace Disco: Escape to Reality Greatest Hits, Volume 1