Shane Williamson > Recent Status Updates

"...our commonsense view of the body as an object among other objects in the world leads many people to dismiss the idea that meaning, thought, and mind can be understood as inextricably tied to our bodies." (275)

"Concepts that we think of as utterly divorced from physical things and sensorimotor experiences (concepts such as justice, mind, knowledge, truth, and democracy) are never really independent of our embodiment, because the semantic and inferential structure of these abstract concepts is drawn from our sensorimotor interactions, typically by cross-domain mappings (conceptual metaphors)." (273)

"Poetic language uses the same conceptual and linguistic apparatus as ordinary language...because metaphors are part of our ordinary mode of thought." (158)

The description of Hebrews as a word of exhortation notifies us that its theology calls us to hear and heed its call to respond with enduring faith, approaching God’s throne of grace and encouraging each other. (17)

"When a reader gives a highly unusual or idiosyncratic construal of a poem, he is sometimes accused of "reading meanings into" the poem that are not "really there." But, because of the nature of language, all reading is reading in. Even if one sticks to the conventional, shared meanings of the words, one will necessarily be evoking all of the knowledge in the schemas in which those words are defined." (109)

"The beginning and the end of all Christian leadership is to give your life for others." (77)

If there is any posture that disturbs a suffering man or woman, it is aloofness. The tragedy of Christian ministry is that many who are in great need, many who seek an attentive ear, a word of support, a forgiving embrace, a firm hand, a tender smile, or even a stuttering confession of in-ability to do more, often find their ministers distant people who do not want to burn their fingers. (77)

"...the authority of compassion is the possibility for each of us to forgive our brothers and sisters, because forgiveness is only real for those who have discovered the weakness of their friends and the sins of their enemies in their own hearts, and are willing to call each human being their sister and brother." (46)

Compassion must become the core, and even the nature, of authority. Christian leaders are people of God only insofar as they are able to make the compassion of God with humanity—which is visible in Jesus Christ—credible in their own world. (45)

"...all ministers are called to recognize the sufferings of their time in their own hearts, and to make that recognition the starting point of their service." (4)

The chapter on Jesus and the Law was decent. I still see a strong Reformed reading underlying his arguments like, "holiness (in Jesus' day) had become just an outward show," and other perjorative comments that are dated and have better explanations in Sloan or Thiessen. Funny enough, for all his emphasis on the return from exile, Patrick doesn't connect this chapter to it!