Join The Underlines // The Best Of What I Read

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

Ever since returning from China, I’ve had an abiding interest in asking this question: “How is it that the West can be re-evangelized?”4 One of the reasons I’m so compelled by the life of habit is that I see habits as a way of light in an age of darkness. Cultivating a life of transcendent habits means that our ordinary ways of living should stand out in our culture, dancing like candles on a dark mantle. As Madeleine L’Engle once wrote, “We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe . . . but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”5

The Common Rule

Justin Whitmel Earley

Knowing about God is different than knowing God. You see, if the Galatian believers really knew God as their Father then they would be free just as Jesus has promised absolute freedom, but they were not free. Paul stuck in this disclaimer as a teaching jab: they were certainly known by God who loved them as his own sons, but they were living as slaves because they did not know and believe the father heart of God for them as sons.

Orphan Slave Son

Ben Pasley

Moses in Deuteronomy says to rest: Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. (5:15) Remember the exodus! Remember that the coercive system of Pharaoh was disrupted. Remember that the brick quota was declared null and void. Moses warned the Israelites: if you forget this, you will give your life over to coercive competition. But if you remember, you will know that Pharaoh and all like agents of coercion have been defeated. You do not need to meet expectations of your mother or your work or your boss or your broker or anybody else. You are free from the quota . . . if you remember, if you situate yourself in the covenant memory.

Sabbath as Resistance, New Edition With Study Guide

Walter Brueggemann

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