Bryan Neuschwander > Recent Status Updates

"...the only kind of a world worth having is a world patterned after the mind and spirit of Jesus."

Jesus to his disciples after his resurrection: "I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Jesus on the most important law: "'Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.' The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these."

Paul to the Romans: "Don't just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other....

"Bless those who persecute you....

"Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see that you are honorable. Do all you can to live in peace with everyone."

Paul to Thessalonian believers: "God's will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor--not in lustful passions like the pagans who do not know God and his ways."

Paul to the Athenians: ..."[God's] purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him--though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' And since this is true, we shouldn't think of God as an idol designed by a craftsman from gold or silver or stone...."

Jesus said, "...it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: 'There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.' You are witnesses of these things.
"And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised...."

"Now may the God of peace--
who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus,
the great Shepherd of the sheep,
and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood--
may he equip you with all you need
for doing his will.
May he produce in you,
through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him.
All glory to him for ever and ever! Amen."

"...true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can't take anything with us when we leave it. So if we have enough food and clothing let us be content."

"...nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries for tomorrow--not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below--indeed nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

"...in a world populated by free agents whose choices genuinely influence what comes to pass, and in which God works by means of influence rather than coercion, one simply cannot infer what God is up to on the basis of what transpires."

...John's revision [in the book of Revelation] of traditional warfare imagery, with its stunning reassessment of power, "is so contrary to normal human practice that most churches throughout history have not agreed with John" (citing Steven Friesen).

"...the NT does not present Jesus as merely revealing an aspect of what God is like, as though we need to supplement this revelation with everything else we find in the Bible. Jesus is rather presented as the one and only Son who is, in contrast to all revelations that preceded him, the 'very radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of God's being' (Heb. 3:1)."

May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. -Jesus, in a prayer to his Father, Jn. 17

"We have never seen anything like this!" -reaction to Jesus

What man can live and not see death,
or save himself from the power of the grave?

"And the name of the city from that time on will be: The LORD Is There."

Land... has become like the garden of Eden.... Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the LORD have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the LORD have spoken and will do it.

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.