Seeing Jesus Fully (Mark 8:22-33)

“... so much American Christianity today comes packaged as inspirational uplift—sunlit, backlit, or candlelit. Furthermore, we are so accustomed to seeing the cross functioning as decoration that we can scarcely imagine it as an object of shame and scandal unless it is burned on someone’s lawn. It requires a considerable effort of the imagination to enter into the first century world of the Roman Empire so as to understand the degree of offensiveness attached to crucifixion as a method of execution. ... There were many thousands of crucifixions in Roman times, but only the crucifixion of Jesus is remembered as having any significance at all, let alone world-transforming significance.”

— Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ

The Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17-34)

“Q. 172. May one who doubts of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation, come to the Lord’s supper?

A. One who doubts of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation to the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, may have true interest in Christ, though he be not yet assured thereof; and in God’s account has it, if he be duly affected with the apprehension of the want of it, and unfeignedly desires to be found in Christ, and to depart from iniquity: in which case (because promises are made, and this sacrament is appointed, for the relief even of weak and doubting Christians) he is to bewail his unbelief, and labor to have his doubts resolved; and, so doing, he may and ought to come to the Lord’s supper, that he may be further strengthened.”

— Westminster Larger Catechism

Receiving the Gift of Sexual Difference (1 Corinthians 11:2-16)

“The justice behind God’s creation of male and female and his arrangement of the different roles he chose for them may not always be apparent to us. Why one and not the other? But should we expect our finitude to understand the infinite, omnipotent, wise, good, lovely, gracious justice of God? Perhaps some inkling resides in the dance of the sexes, by which we reveal truth about the inner life of the triune God. The rest is clothed in mystery, to which we yield, with full confidence that it is meant for our good.”

— Kathy Keller

Jesus: The Rock (Matthew 7:24-27)

“In applying [the Sermon on the Mount] to ourselves, we need to consider that the Bible is a dangerous book to read, and that the Church is a dangerous society to join. For in reading the Bible, we hear the words of Christ, and in joining the church, we say, we believe in Christ. As a result, we belong to the company described by Jesus as both hearing his teaching and calling him Lord. Our membership therefore lays upon us the serious responsibility of ensuring that what we know and what we say is translated into what we do.”

— John Stott

Finding the Narrow Gate (Matthew 7:15-23)

“You say, you find it hard to believe it [is] compatible with the divine purity to embrace or employ such a monster as yourself. [In thinking this, you] express not only a low opinion of yourself, which is right, but too low an opinion of the person, work, and promises of the Redeemer; which is certainly wrong. ... Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. He sometimes off ers to teach us humility; but though I wish to be humble, I desire not to learn in his school. His premises perhaps are true, that we are vile, wretched creatures—but he then draws abominable conclusions from them; and would teach us, that, therefore, we ought to question either the power, or the willingness, or the faithfulness of Christ.”

— John Newton, “Letter XI, to the Rev. Mr S”

“[I]t is as if an error slipped into an author’s writing and the error became conscious of itself as an error. ... and now this error wants to mutiny against the author, out of hatred toward him, forbidding him to correct it and in maniacal defiance saying to him: No, I refuse to be erased; I will stand as a witness against you, a witness that you are a second-rate author.”

— Søren Kierkegaard