WRITING

'It's like building a chicken coop in a high wind. You grab any board or shingle flying by or loose on the ground and nail it down fast.'

William Faulkner in Eugene H Peterson, The Pastor, p.6.

BECOMING A PASTOR

'I was a pastor long before I knew I was a pastor; I just never had a name for it. Once the name arrived, all kinds of things, seemingly random experiences and memories, gradually began to take a form that was congruent with whom I was becoming, like finding a glove that fit my hand perfectly - a calling, a fusion of all the pieces of my life, a vocation: Pastor.' 

Eugene H Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir, p.2. 

PASTORAL CARE

'Every Christian's life story plays somewhat different music - variations in lyrics, melody, harmony, key, tempo, and instrumentation. Handel's "Messiah" and "Blessed Be Your Name" by Matt and Beth Redman are both in the repertoire of Christian faith. Redemption in Christ plays out in every story. This is how it should be. Pastoral ministry - both preaching and counseling - should relish the variety. We serve a King who makes no two snowflakes alike, and his thoughts regarding each individual are more numerous than snowflakes in a blizzard. It would be most odd if he said the exact same thing to every one of us. It would contradict who he is and who we are.' 

David Powlison, 'How Does Sanctification Happen?' in Journal of Biblical Counseling (Vol. 27 No.1), p.63.  

PASTORAL CARE

'Ministry, Scripture, and the Spirit speak variously. This is also why any two wise, godly friends will speak differently into your life, even when addressing the same situation. Organic unity (balance) and infinite adaptability (unbalance) characterize the wisdom that sanctifies us. There is no formula or pat answer. When two friends say the same thing, or when you say the same thing to every struggler, it is probably a pat answer.' 

David Powlison, 'How Does Sanctification Work? (Part 1) in Journal of Biblical Counselling (Vol 27 No.1), p.59. 

WORKS

'To fret about the quality of our love is to miss the point. Yes, we examine ourselves, confess our failings and pray for grace to offer the best. But it will never be good enough, unless with all its flaws it is handed over and taken up into his love for the Father. Foolishly we rummage through what Yeats called the "rag and bone shop" of our hearts to find a love that is pure, untouched by self-interest or pretense. It is an endless and futile search, compunded by complexity the more rigorously it is pursued. Among the things we give up, among the things we hand over, is that futile search.'

Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon, p.235.

 

THE CROSS

'Justice requires that satisfaction be made; we were and we are in no position to make such satisfaction. Jesus Christ actively intervenes on our behalf; he freely takes our part in healing the breach between God and humanity by the sacrifice of the cross. To speak of a collusion between the persons of the triune God suggests the word "conspiracy." It is a helpful word when we remember that conspire means, quite literally, "to breathe together." In the beginning God breathes life into Adam; Jesus breathes life upon the disciples and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." The triune God conspires for our salvation. The entire plan is love from beginning to end, and the fullness of God  - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - is engaged every step of the way. It is not an angry Father punishing an innocent Son, with the Spirit on the sidelines helplessly watching. No, it is the Father, Son and Spirit conspiring together to save us from ourselves. At the Father's command, the Son goes forth in the power of the Spirit to become one of us. On our behalf, as Representative Humanity, he lives the life of perfect obedience that Adam - and all of us "in Adam" - failed to live. And he completes that life by dying the perfect death.'

Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon, p.221.  

THE CROSS

'Remove the idea of sacrifice, the reality of sacrifice, from Christianity and it becomes something other than Christianity.

The concept of expiation, of making amends by sacrifice, is indeed primitive. It is primitive in the sense that it is deeply rooted in human nature and variously expressed in all cultures that we know about. Once again, to say that something is primitive does not mean that it is naive and should be outgrown. That which is most deeply rooted in human nature and culture - whether it be attitudes toward sexual relations, property and theft or the love of children - reflects a wisdom that we ignore at our peril.' 

Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon, p.216. 

THE CROSS

'This "exemplification theory" of the atonement - the crucified Jesus as the supreme example - is strong on challenge but weak on comfort. It has little to say about what the crucifixion actually did, what it actually accomplished in terms of reconciling God and humankind. That we are alienated from God and in need to reconciled is the premise of the entire biblical story, without which it simply makes no sense. In this liberal theory, it is hard to know what is mean by "It is finished." Perhaps that Jesus lived to its conclusion an extremely good, even uniquely good, life. That might elicit our admiration and our efforts at emulation, but it doesn't say much about our inability to be what we strive to be. It doesn't say much about the ways in which we are what we hate. In short it doesn't say much about our salvation. Christianity is about salvation.' 

Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon, p.212. 

THE CROSS

'...the paradox at the heart of the muddle - God's loss of everything on the cross, his taking our place, is our only hope that all is not lost.' 

Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon, p.203. 

LONELINESS

'From now on, in the abandonment of Christ the alone are never alone. That is because, as paradoxical as it may sound, aloneness is no longer alone, but has been brought into the good company of God.' 

Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon, p.198.