Join The Underlines // The Best Of What I Read

A batch of the best highlights from what Joshua's read, .

This fact of God’s care and provision proves to all that no human condition excludes blessedness, that God may come to any person with his care and deliverance. God does sometimes help those who cannot, or perhaps just do not, help themselves. (So much for another well-known generalization!) The religious system of his day left the multitudes out, but Jesus welcomed them all into his kingdom. Anyone could come as well as any other. They still can. That is the gospel of the Beatitudes.

The Divine Conspiracy

Dallas Willard

Or perhaps we take seriously the act of going to bed and asking, How am I going to end this thing? Shall we lie awake in bed, letting all the replay tapes run? Shall we browse our phones for some recent celebrity scandal to bounce meaninglessly around our brain? Or shall we walk intentionally toward the rest we know we need? No one can sleep while believing that she needs to keep the world spinning. But real rest comes when we thank God that we don’t need to, because he does. Thus we kneel by the bed and place the period of God’s mercy and care for us at the end of the day.

The Common Rule

Justin Whitmel Earley

Moses anticipates that if they are not alert to the God of emancipation, they will end up right back in another system of coercion. Because the land is fertile, its produce will make Israel safe and happy. And if Israel can increase its produce, it will be safer and happier. And Israel will discover that the sky is the limit! The fertility of the land and the productivity of the system will make Israel acquisitive; Israel will come to think that the goal of its life is to acquire and acquire and acquire. And in order to acquire, Israelites must compete with the neighbor. The system will turn one’s neighbor into a competitor and a threat and a challenge.

Sabbath as Resistance, New Edition With Study Guide

Walter Brueggemann

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