Some quotable quotes and reflections

We must be content with being nobodies for Christ; to be forgotten. Many missionaries will have passed through the twentieth century only remembered by relatives and a few people that they were able to minister to. Their lives were never considered great, but they did their part faithfully, and most importantly, God does not forget them. (Patrick Fung, OMF General Director)

Sometimes it is when all our dreams are shattered that we realise God's dream' for us - that is, to know him and love him, and to know his love for us and for humankind. (myself)

A former refugee at our church finally reunited with his wife recently. His conversion was an amazing one and his baptism a few years ago moved me greatly. It's a great joy to see his wife in our church today. (myself in October)

I think "sorry" (when it is said sincerely) is a powerful word that can change our lives. (myself)

Forgiveness is not so much a word spoken, an action performed, or a feeling felt as it is an embodied way of life in an ever-deepening friendship with the Triune God and with others. (Gregory Jones)

God subverts human triumphalism in that he wins by losing. He unleashes resurrection life on his world through the dying and rising again of Jesus Christ. Because of God's surprising ways, God's people will play subversive roles in the gospel drama as we resist the corruption of the present evil age. (Timothy G Gombis)

When we read the Bible as stories - God's stories - we stop treating it as a set of rules or treating God as a genie for our benefits. As we enter the stories of the Bible, we feel the pain and suffering of the characters, feel the wonders of God's deliverance, identify with God's people as they struggle and falter, and experience the amazing grace of God in all our failures and shortcomings. (myself)

Faith is a complex human experience, and [the apostle] Paul preserves this complexity while giving it a unique twist. While affirming its character as trust and conviction, Paul connects faith to the experience of Jesus as God's faithful Son. Faith is more than trust; it is also fidelity, or loyalty. (Michael Gorman)

When I read the Gospels, I see a bunch of people whose lives were in a mess. They followed Jesus because he proclaimed a topsy-turvy kingdom. And he did not become King through his power. He became King because he suffered and died, and was vindicated by God at his resurrection. All this was of course the embodiment of his topsy-turvy kingdom. (myself)

If we understand sin in terms of breaking a set of moral codes, we end up with a self-centred religion. If we understand sin in terms of our failure to love our neighbour and to love God wholeheartedly, then we come close to the heart of the gospel. (myself)

From Homer to Hollywood, people are fascinated with heroes. They are people of power and wisdom. But the apostle Paul, borrowing from Jeremiah, says that he would only boast of his weakness, and 'the Christ crucified' is the true wisdom of God. (myself)