charli conway > Recent Status Updates

‘To truly become Christians we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right […] we must learn how to repent of the sin under all our other sins AND under all our righteousness - the sin of seeking to be our own Saviour and Lord.’

‘Because he doesn’t see himself as being a part of a common community of sinners, he is trapped by his own bitterness. It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel superior to him or her’

‘Because the elder brother is more blind to what is going on, being an elder brother Pharisee is a more spiritually desperate condition. ‘How dare you say that?’ is how religious people respond if you say their relationship with God isn’t right. ‘I’m there every time the church doors are open’ Jesus says, in effect ‘that doesn’t matter’. No one had ever taught anything like this before.

‘Elder brothers obey God to get things. They don’t obey God to get God himself. In order to resemble him, love him, know him and delight in him.’

I take back what I said I have just been launched into a chapter all about Jesus

this book is currently giving self help book for the first 15 pages of every chapter then a brief mention of God in the last two. more Jesus pls xx

‘God’s presence brings out the goodness in all things - he is not a rival to them. that doesn’t mean there aren’t some choices to make, habits to avoid and priorities to fix, but it does help us to see how bringing God into a person’s life might enhance the ordinary things of that life, bringing out its colour and flavour rather than crowding out all that is good and beautiful’

‘you can prove or disprove events, ideas or theories because each of them relates to and is connected to other things within the universe, so you can tell whether they make sense or not or whether there is enough historical or observational evidence to amount to reasonable proof. what Christians mean by God is by definition beyond all that exists within that system, and not subject to normal types of proof’

‘by definition, when they speak about God, Christians are referring to something, or someone, uncreated, the one entity that is not made by anything else, but just is. If everything we see around us is contingent, God is the only being that is necessary. God is not dependant on anything else, but is the one whom everything else depends on’

‘purely material explanations for the emergence of the universe only every explain how something actually comes from something else. they don’t explain and neither could they ever explain, how something emerges from absolutely nothing at all’

‘cynicism is usually the hard crust of a hurting soul’

fiction that has deeper non-fictional meanings >>>

let it be known that I am not reading fiction by choice, I have simply run out of non fiction book. that said, are we shocked that this is the fiction choice

‘Perhaps we need to appreciate that there are many things that seem improbably - but improbability does not entail, and never has entailed, non-existence. We may be highly improbable - yet we are here. The issue, then, is not whether God is probable, but whether God is actual’

two McGrath books back to back?? yes please

‘Christianity needs to be explained. The Bible needs to be interpreted and applied. And both involve us, as active agents, doing our best to translate the realities of the gospel into the categories of the contemporary - not to reduce the gospel to contemporary ideas but to allow it to gain access to people’s minds and lives, so that it can begin its work of transformation and renewal'

‘it has always seemed to me that the best way for Christians to enter into a secular mindset is not through reading books, but through encouraging Christians to be citizens of both worlds and thus helping their fellow Christians to bridge the gap between the Church and the world. Someone who is bilingual does not need a translator’

reading in st james’ park on a sunny lunch break>>

‘when rightly understood - and it is so easily misunderstood- theology is about an imaginative enlargement of our vision of God and the corresponding expansion of our mental capacity to grasp and appreciate the rich and rewarding ‘big picture’ of reality that lies and at the heart of the Christian faith’

‘It is not about a quest for exotic or arcane knowledge, or the cultivation of academic arrogance; rather, it is about allowing the light of Christ to shine on our intellects, so that the transforming power of God’s Grace might renew our minds, not merely our souls’

‘Responding to intellectual and cultural criticisms of faith may not lead to conversion and conviction. Yet a failure to response creates the impression that faith is for those who have neither the ability nor inclination to think; that faith lacks any evidential basis; or that the death of faith is the inevitable outcome of cultural progress’

my guy has quoted 3 ‘the killers’ songs in this book. 5 star rating for music taste.

want to finish this study before sunday so I can FINALLY give it back to jeremy.

‘When you’ve experienced the resurrected Jesus, the mystery hidden in the fabric of creation, you can’t help but talk about him. You’ve tapped into the joy that fills the entire universe, and so naturally you want others to meet this God. This is a God worth telling people about’

this book has given me such an insight into biblical descriptions of hell. wish all people could read the chapter on hell

‘Jesus did not use hell too try and compel ‘heathens’ and ‘pagans’ to believe in God, so they wouldn’t burn when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God’s love ‘