Nick Anderson’s Reviews > Word on Fire Bible (Volume 1): The Gospels > Status Update

“The dysfunction into which men and women have fallen is like an addiction or an obsession: any attempt on their part to overcome the difficulty will only sink them deeper into it. Therefore the proper attitude in the presence of the saving God is obedience and acquiescence, imitating his moves, responding to his commands, doing whatever he tells us.”

“In Jeremiah's prophecy of the New Covenant, Yahweh had said, ‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts’ (Jer. 31:33).
This means that the everlasting agreement would be written not on stone tablets, but in the flesh of the people's hearts; it would be not an oppressive law externally imposed, but a rule congruent with the deepest longing of the human soul.“

“Bound by no one, Augustus seems to be utterly free; but real freedom, Luke is telling us, is enjoyed by the child totally bound by his Father's will and hence tied to the good of the world he has come to serve. Once he has decided to create, God cannot remain indifferent to the world and its needs; on the contrary, he is bound by a fiercely parental love to everything that participates in his being.”

“Bound by no one, Augustus seems to be utterly free; but real freedom, Luke is telling us, is enjoyed by the child totally bound by his Father's will and hence tied to the good of the world he has come to serve. Once he has decided to create, God cannot remain indifferent to the world and its needs; on the contrary, he is bound by a fiercely parental love to everything that participates in his being.”

From Bishop Barron’s reflection on Matthew 22: “We have heard the invitation of God to enter into intimacy with him, to make him the center of our lives, to be married to him in Christ—and often we find the most pathetic excuses not to respond.”