This Sunday’s readings: John 20:24-31

Reflections

‘My master,’ he says, ‘and my God!’ He is the first person in this book to look at Jesus of Nazareth and address the word ‘God’ directly to him. Yet this is what John has been working round to from the beginning. ‘In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God.’ ‘Nobody has ever seen God. The only-begotten God, who is intimately close to the father—he has brought him to light.’ What does that mean? What does it look like when it’s actually happening? Well, says John, it looks like this…
~ N.T. Wright, 1948- , N.T. Scholar, Pauline Theology

Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.
~ Madeleine L’Engle, 1918-2007, American Author

It is the way of God: he humbles that he may exalt, he kills that he might make alive, he confounds that he might glorify.
~Martin Luther, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

If Jesus is the model of perfect faith, and his twin is Thomas, who models doubt, then what we understand is that faith and doubt are not antitheses—they’re twins.
~ Mark Schaefer, American University Chaplain, Author

The only way to doubt Christianity rightly and fairly is to discern the alternate belief under each of your doubts and then ask yourself what reasons you have for believing it. How do you know your belief is true? It is inconsistent to require more justification for Christian belief than you do for your own, but that is frequently what happens. In fairness, you must doubt your doubts. My thesis is that if you come to recognize the beliefs on which your doubts about Christianity are based, and if you seek as much proof for those beliefs as you seek from Christians for theirs—you will discover that your doubts are not as solid as they first appeared.
~ Tim Keller, Pastor/Author

This Sunday’s readings: John 20:10-18

Reflections

What we do in the crisis always depends on whether we see the difficulties in the light of God, or God in the shadow of the difficulties.
~ G. Campbell Morgan, 1863-1945, British Minister/Educator

It is not easy to convey a sense of wonder, let alone resurrection wonder, to another. It’s the very nature of wonder to catch us off guard, to circumvent expectations and assumptions. Wonder can’t be packaged, and it can’t be worked up. It requires some sense of being there and some sense of engagement.
~ Eugene H. Peterson, 1932-2018, Pastor/Author

While religious dogmatism is always a danger…. we’ve got more to fear from the easygoing narcissism that is so much part of the atmosphere nobody even thinks to protest or get angry about it.
~ David Brooks, New York Times commentator

How unbearably tragic it would be, though, if the millions of Asia, South America and Africa were led to believe that the best we can hope for from The Way of Christ is the level of Christianity visible in Europe and America today.
~ Dallas Willard, 1935-2013, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers.
~ Francis Chan, Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God