“An ethical system in a shame-and-honor-culture is a self-regarding and self-actualizing ethic, but an ethical system that draws on Christian beliefs is an other-regarding ethic based on a commitment to the good of others for their sake, not yours.”- Timothy Keller (emphasis author’s) As Timothy Keller moves on in Chapter 3 of Forgive, he talks […]
“The discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth. The fact that he made this discovery in a religious context and articulated it in religious language is no reason to take it less seriously in a strictly secular sense.”- Hannah Arendt, philosopher (1906-1975) In Chapter 3 (“The […]
“[We have such] impoverished contemporary understandings and practices of forgiveness in modern western culture. . . . If all that matters is individual autonomy, then forgiveness and reconciliation — which are designed to foster and maintain communion — are of little importance.”- L. Gregory Jones, Embodying Forgiveness (1995) Timothy Keller concludes Chapter 2 of Forgive […]
“What lies behind this conflict over forgiveness? All the complaints around forgiveness assume definitions and models of it that indeed can be problematic. It is not enough, then, to simply call people to be more forgiving.”- Timothy Keller In Chapter 2 (“The Fading of Forgiveness’) of Forgive, Timothy Keller critiques the three current models of […]
“What will change our hearts? The only thing that will change a servant from acting like a king is getting a view of the amazing love of the King who became a servant. We should be in the accused prisoner’s dock, but we put ourselves in the judge’s seat.”- Timothy Keller “To see the law […]
“[The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant] is an account of forgiveness failure because that is the usual human story. The movement from divine forgiveness to human forgiveness is constantly frustrated by human sin. . . . Are you a professing Christian . . . known by your friends and neighbors for being unusually loving, generous, […]
“Forgiveness is not merely difficult for us. . . . Forgiveness is also difficult for us to grant. . . . We who live only by the mercy of God every second of our lives fail to be kind, merciful, generous, gracious, and forgiving every day. [The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant], then, is an […]
“The human need for forgiveness appears indelible. It won’t go away by denouncing it or trying to deconstruct it. The need I’m referring to is both a profound need to grant forgiveness and to receive forgiveness. . . . Forgiveness gets down to the bottom of things — to the alienation we feel from God […]
Good and Beautiful and Kind Rich Villodas recently published his second book, Good and Beautiful and Kind: Becoming Whole in a Fractured World (Waterbrook, 2022). Brooklyn-born, Rich Villodas serves as the lead pastor of New Life Fellowship in Elmhurst, Queens. In his Introduction, Pastor Villodas lists goodness, beauty, and kindness as three realities of God’s […]
“We are not called to fix the world but to faithfully respond with the resources, strength, and love we have. . . . The call to justice is not about fruitfulness but faithfulness. . . . In God’s way of doing things, the small, hidden, incremental acts of love have a way of being harnessed […]
“A Christian sense of justice is one shaped by the Christian story. And that means a Christian sense of justice is shaped by love of God and love of others instead of a Western, individualized, and modernist concept of freedom and rights.”- Scot McKnight, A Community Called Atonement “Praise the LORD. . . who redeems […]
“The love John speaks of is one built not on sentimentality but in concrete acts of care — care that intersects the true wounds and needs of those around us. The scandal of Christianity is that we love and encounter God through people. . . . If the love we claim to have doesn’t lead […]