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“The Scripture stories do not, like Homer’s, court our favor, they do not flatter us that they may please us and enchant us — they seek to subject us, and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels.”
— Erich Auerbach
“In the self-assured world of modernity people seek to make sense of the Scriptures, instead of hoping, with the aid of the Scriptures, to make some sense of themselves.”
— Nicholas Lash
God’s Kingdom: “a sphere of rulership, in which his will is done in the fallen world as it is in the sinless heavens; in which cruelty and disorder and the distortion caused by sin are supplanted by love, order and righteousness. Loving obedience to God produces much more than individual goodness, respectability and the alleviation of suffering. It builds the kingdom of heaven.”
—Richard Lovelace, Renewal as a Way of Life
“In your gift we find our rest. There are you our joy. Our rest is our peace. … A body by its weight tends to move towards its proper place. The weight’s movement is not necessarily downward, but to its appropriate position: fire tends to move upwards, a stone downwards. … Things which are not in their intended position are restless. Once they are in their ordered position, they are at rest. My weight is my love. Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me. By your gift we are set on fire and carried upwards.”
—Augustine of Hippo
“The simple, possessive pronoun, ‘your’ on Sinai, and now the simple possessive pronoun ‘our’ on the New Testament mountain, join the people of God to God. God was not introduced to Israel, coldly and formally as ‘Yahweh, the God,’ but warmly as ‘Yahweh, your God.’ And now in the same spirit, God is given to us not only as the Father, but as ‘Our Father.’ The ‘our’ means we belong and are at home. It is a possessive pronoun, meaning that God the Father owns us yet gives himself to us so that he is ours and we are his. In the simple word ‘our’ is the joy of the whole gospel. We will never be able to calculate the honor that has been done us by being allowed to say, ‘Our Father.’’’
—F.D. Bruner, Matthew, A Commentary
The Merciful:
“[those] who come to the aid of others” — St. Augustine
“[those] who are not only prepared to put up with their own troubles but who also take on other people’s troubles.” — John Calvin
“The Gospel Merciful are the understanding; those who under-stand; those who put themselves under others to support them.” — Frederick Dale Bruner
“The finality of Christ’s death on the cross - which left to itself, could be so soothing to us, in the somber glow of our wisdom and tragedy’s pathos - has been unceremoniously undone, and we are suddenly denied the consolations of pity and reverence, resignation and recognition, and are thrown out upon the turbid seas of boundless hope and boundless hunger.”
—David Bentley Hart
“St. Thomas, for instance, says: ‘That God wishes to give to someone... grace and glory proceeds from his sheer generosity.’ … [T]o someone, to some person at whom we can point. To someone, to you, to me, this very day.” — Henri de Lubac
“True faith is not only a certain knowledge, whereby I hold for truth all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also an assured confidence... that not only to others, but to me also, remission of sin, everlasting righteousness and salvation, are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ's merits.” — Heidelberg Catechism, Question 21
“Read the words ‘me’ and ‘for me’ with great emphasis. Print this ‘me’ with capital letters in your heart, and do not ever doubt that you belong to the number of those who are meant by this ‘me.’ Christ did not only love Peter and Paul. The same love He felt for them He feels for us. If we cannot deny that we are sinners, we cannot deny that Christ died for our sins.” — Martin Luther
“What can strip the seeming beauty, from the idols of the earth? Not a sense of right or duty, but the sight of peerless worth.”
— Ora Rowan, Hast thou Heard Him, Seen Him, Known Him
“Thy mercy my God is the theme of my song; the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue. Thy Free Grace alone from the first to the last, hath won my affections and bound my soul fast.”
—John Stocker, 1776
“When God’s Son took on our flesh, he truly and bodily took on, out of pure grace, our being, our nature, ourselves. This was the eternal counsel of the triune God. Now we are in him. Where he is, there we are too, in the incarnation, on the cross, and in his resurrection. We belong to him because we are in him. This is why the Scriptures call us the Body of Christ.”
—Dietrich Bonhoeffer