Join The Underlines // The Best Of What I Read

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

The early church was strikingly different from the culture around it in this way - the pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body. A pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body. And the Christians came along and gave practically nobody their body and they gave practically everybody their money.

A Creative Minority

Jon Tyson, Heather Grizzle

For other religious movements of the day, such as Mithraism or the cult of Jupiter Dolichenus, for example, there are the remains of numerous shrines and dedicatory inscriptions but no texts.46 For early Christianity, however, there are no known church structures or inscriptions prior to sometime in the third century AD, but there is this huge catalogue of texts. This is yet another indication that early Christianity was different from at least most other religious groups of the time.

Destroyer of the Gods

Larry W. Hurtado

Jesus is more than an example to be followed; he’s a Savior to be trusted. This is why we miss the point if we see Jesus’ wilderness temptation as only how to overcome temptation, with advice like “Jesus used Scripture, so you should too.” This focuses on a flea and misses the elephant in the room. The point is not, “He did it; you can too!” The point is, “You don’t do it; so Jesus did it for you.”

The Pursuing God

Joshua Ryan Butler

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