Notes on *Repentance*

Repentance: A Daring Call to Surrender, Jack Miller, (CLC Publications, 1975, 2009)

Note-taker’s Preface: The resurgence of gospel-centeredness over the last 20+ years is owed in large part, humanly speaking, to the ministries of men like Tim Keller. But behind his ministry is the influence of Jack Miller and Richard Lovelace, among others, who helped shaped Keller during his days at Westminster Seminary. You can see traces of the influence in the primary sources of Miller and Lovelace. For example, consider these words from Lovelace in Dynamics of Spiritual Life (1979):

The beginning place for personal renewal is a preaching and teaching ministry that emphasizes depth proclamation of the gospel. …We must first make real to them the grace of God in accepting them daily, not because of their spirituality, but because of the perfect righteousness of Christ. (211)

Have you ever heard a sermon from Tim Keller? This is precisely what Keller does, and it’s worth emulating, by God’s grace. As for Jack Miller, his work is as relevant for us now as it was 50 years ago. I think of A Faith Worth Sharing and Outgrowing the Ingrown Church. And, of course, there is his small book Repentance. This book is one that I’ve read and reread for years, together with other men. I will let it speak for itself:

Main Idea/Takeaway

• A life of daily repentance is vital for centering the gospel of God's undeserved grace in Christ.

Interaction 

• "Not to undermine asiety, but to emphasize the humility of covenant." (12)

• "Our works- for self-justification- are actually a criticism of God." (21)

• "Isaiah saw God!" (22)

• "Point to Christ as our only Mediator." (27)

• "Priesthood of believers." (27)

• "Consider repentance in light of new creation." (33)

• "Repentance is hearing again and again, "You're wrong and you're loved." (37)

• "Spirit-filled life: Love (affection & obedience); Humility (repentance everyday)." (41)

• "When the stress is experienced, the focus becomes more external, not of the heart." (42)

• "Spirit-filled life is repentant, not 'perfect'." (43)

• "cf. CSL on forgiveness: We are often harsher with other people's sin than we are our own."(43)

• "Which can only happen if we care more about what He thinks than we do what others think. If we care about what other's think, we'll only "repent" when our performance suffers, not our heart motives." (43)

• "I'm not. I can't. I won't. You are. You can. You will." (47)

• "God commands repentance." (61)

• "Far worse than we ever imagined, far more loved than we ever dared dream." (66)

• "How have we seen the power of guilt play out in people's lives? Our own?" (70)

• "Penance, self-reliance, guilt in 'gospel-centered' guise?" (77)

• "Counseling as expository in one-on-one...find those places to go." (79)

• "Consider the tonic of silence before God." (82)

• "So much of prayer is navigating through trifles (which is why it's hard)." (85)

• "Devil's tactic in you praying with fluency." (85)

• "Why collision matters: 1.) power of testimony; 2.) the tonic of silence before God, not prayerlessness. 3.) Compassion is a fruit of repentance. 4.) Because there is where we remember Jesus is real." (83)

• "Wash their feet." (86)

• "Beware the self-righteousness of gospel-centeredness. We're addicts at self-congratulations, (i.e., work progress)." (87)

• "Epilogue by Jack's widow , 1996." (98)

Table of Contents

Foreword

A Note to the Reader

I. Repentance: The Foundation of Life

II. Repentance and Its Counterfeit

III. What Is True Repentance?

IV. Repentance and the Spirit-filled Life

V. Repentance and the Carnal Christian

VI. Repentance and God's Mercy

VII. Repentance and Counseling

VIII. Repentance and Sharing Christ

Epilogue

Favorite Quotes by Chapter

I. Repentance: The Foundation of Life

• "What we all desperately need to see is that the love of a holy God is manifested covenantally at the cross. In the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the Father promises to receive contrite sinners on a daily-no, hourly-basis." (11)

• "The Father, in the gift of His Son, has put Himself under eternal obligation to returning children. Having satisfied the demands of His own holy law, the Father/must open His mighty arms and embrace every returning child." (12)

• "To be near God and to have God near us is the whole purpose of human life. But without sincere repentance there can be no face-to-face fellowship with the Father of lights." (12)

• "Once tasted, repentance would speak to them of communion with Christ and of self-forgetting fruitfulness and of Kingdom power (Mark 1:15)." (13)

• "In our pride we would never think of ourselves in connection with Ananias and Sapphira. But our sin bears a very close resemblance to theirs. They wanted to pretend to be near God when they were not." (14)

• "The world of humanity in our generation has been dominated by lies, broken promises, shattered illusions and just general sham. People are sick and tired of role-players and plastic goods, slickly turned out and calculated to deceive. Therefore, if we wish to be effective, we must see that our own pharisaic pretense will eventually be discovered by the people we meet and rebuked by our own consciences." (15)

• "Ask the Holy Spirit to make you willing to be searched by God (Ps. 139:23-24). Do not expect the process of searching to be always painless and pleasant. No, hardly. But you will begin to have the joy of a clear conscience and a deepening fellowship with Christ." (16)

II. Repentance and Its Counterfeit

• "Penance is not merely a sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church. Rather, it is a religious attitude deeply rooted in the human heart which prompts people to attempt to pay for their own sins by good works and sufferings. Self-justification is the goal of this effort." (17)

• "So long as we look within ourselves for the source of our life, we know nothing of Christ." (18)

• "What these people seek from God is enough grace to be strong in themselves. They do not need or want a constant flow of water from heaven." (19)

• "For truly repentant sinners have discovered, through the renewing work of the Holy Spirit, that all their doing is full of sin. Their doing is the source of their wretched emptiness, their black depression and their self-despising. But now they have come undone. They turn from their sinful doing and trust in what Christ has done." (20)

• "Penance is centered in human emotions and perceptions. But repentance to life is God-centered." (20)

• "As a natural consequence, those doing penance will God as owing them a debt; living in self-pity, they become almost unshakably convinced that if there is any forgiving to do, they must forgive God for making them such rotten sinners." (21)

• "Humanity has an immense pride. This is the basis of the self-pity which leads people to condemn God for what seems to them bad management of human affairs. But one real meeting with the living God puts all this self-righteous junk into its true perspective. You just don't argue with holy fire. You submit to it." (23)

• "For the sure mark of authentic repentance is boldness and joyous enthusiasm for the things of God." (23)

• "We are not to make men and women our own disciples, but to make them disciples of the Lord. Therefore, repentance means that people must turn from trusting in empty cisterns like ourselves and thirst and drink from Christ alone (John 7:37-38). Pastors and Christian workers are not merely to accept l believers this as an interesting insight which is mildly relevant to their work. It is, in fact, a matter of spiritual life and death." (27)

III. What Is True Repentance?

• "This motivation for changing one's mind and life-direction is the lordship of the crucified Savior." (31)

• "In the presence of this exalted Lord, self-defense is foolishness, but self-examination aided by the Holy Spirit is everything. Stated practically, our self-examination before the Lord must deal with two kinds of sins. For the purpose of easier understanding, we shall call one kind branch-sins and the other root-sins." (33)

• "Be encouraged then, fellow believer. In calling you to daily repentance, the Lord Jesus is not simply giving you good advice. He is saying, "If you are mine, you must continue to repent.'" (37)

• "Take care not to rob someone of "godly grief" over sin. For if you rob them of the grief, you will also rob them of the joy which comes as a consequence of a hearty repentance." (39)

IV. Repentance and the Spirit-filled Life

• "I want to set down two closely related criteria for the Spirit-filled life: The first is sincere love to the Lord Jesus Christ as the gift of the Father's love, and the second is a genuine repentance which causes us to be broken down before God." (43)

• "For to have the Holy Spirit in you is to have more of Christ in you, to be more like Christ and to bear the fruit of the Spirit which comes through faith in Christ and His merits (Gal. 5:22-23)." (46)

• "There must be a daily conversion of the heart to God (Col. 2:6). And the more you deepen your repentance, the more room you have in your heart for the rivers of living water. The more you know that you are stained to the bone with selfish impulses, the more you see how you hold out against the will of the Lord, then the more you will go to Christ as a thirsty sinner who finds deeper cleansing, more life and greater joy through the Spirit." (47)

• "Repentance prepares the way so that the Lord of glory can enter into the spirit and be adored as the new center of heavenly life. Before, such people were consumed by self-love, but once the Spirit convicted them of sin and turned them to the cross, self-love was crowded out by love to the Lord Jesus Christ." (47)

V. Repentance and the Carnal Christian

• "Backsliding is not a category or a stage in Christian development, but it is living, unrepentant, in a state of sin on the part of those who know better." (51)

• "Definitely, elements of carnality still plague the new Christian. The same can be said of the mature believer. But so long as God's people continue to repent and cling to Christ for growth in grace, they are not carnal in the Pauline sense. They are going forward- sometimes only creeping on hands and knees- but they are not sliding backward like stubborn brute beasts." (52)

• "It should, therefore, be fully understood that in the New Testament the lordship of Christ is the basis of evangelism. It underlies the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), it stands at the center of Paul's great definition of the gospel (1 Cor. 15:3-5), and it is a truth heralded with flaming power at Pentecost (Acts 2:36). With respect to evangelism, G. Campbell Morgan says, "To preach the living lordship of Christ is to create the necessity for His cross.""(53)

• "But, as has been stressed in this study, repentance has nothing to do with what we have done. Rather, it is our coming undone in respect to all human righteousness, followed by going outside ourselves in faith to Christ alone for salvation." (53)

• "There is no greater stumbling block to the salvation of pseudo-Christians than the insistence of believing relatives and friends that the unsaved loved one is already in Christ." (56)

• "I do not mean to imply for a moment that every believer's religious life should be modeled along the same lines. Christian piety can take many different forms. But whenever there is genuine life, this life will produce the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:2)." (56)

• "It is the nature of the authentic Christian to respond with repentance and deeds of righteousness when corrected by the Word." (57)

• "If people are really carnally minded, they are lost and yet in their sins." (57)

• "It is exceedingly important that we do not allow anything to blur the radical difference between the old and the new creation. To do so is to obscure the glory of the Christian hope and the transforming power of grace. We must give all the energy of faith to preaching that Christ of God who gives a totally new life with fullness of spiritual being." (59)

VI. Repentance and God's Mercy

• "God has entered into history, and this gives people everywhere a powerful, unprecedented reason for repenting." (61)

• "What can be done for sinners like these? They are dominated by an iron self-assertion which prefers their own glory to the glory of God (John 5:39-47, 12:41-43). Even more, what can be done for us, since we all participate in that spirit of unbelief which sent the Lord of glory to the cross? The answer is the cross itself. We have all sinned against the law of God, and now this rebellion has come to climactic expression in our sinning against the ultimate gift of God. But the cross includes in it payment for this worst sin of all--the scorning of it." (64)

• "Unbelief is the supreme transgression of the world. and as your sin too, it is most dangerous to your spiritual life. Specifically, unbelief kills our love and feeds our pride." (65)

• "Jesus then teaches us that repentance for the worst of sins is freely given to believers on the basis of the greatest of gifts. Thus, it is not just the sight of my unbelief that makes me wish to repent, but my seeing the magnitude of the heavenly love." (66)

• "Repentance thus is the more negative side of conversion, the overturning of the idols and the turning to God; saving faith is the more positive side of conversion." (67)

VII. Repentance and Counseling

• "But to evade God's condemnation, people erect about themselves a protective wall of self-righteousness." (69)

• "No matter how hard people try, they cannot finally escape from this inner torment by moving rapidly through the outer physical spaces though this is a favorite device adopted by those who live in a self-energized speed culture." (70)

• "The mystery is that Christ's sacrifice includes in it payment for our despisal and indifference- and you repent of such a sin by trusting in Jesus blood for cleansing." (77)

• "It points up the danger which constantly faces both new believers and long-time Christians. It is the temptation to think of the first conversion as everything and to forget that repentance and faith include a continuing, radical reorientation of the life toward God. Hear what John Murray says: "Christ's blood is the laver of initial cleansing but it is also the fountain to which the believer must continuously repair. It is at the cross of Christ that repentance has its beginning; it is at the cross of Christ that it must continue to pour out its heart in the tears of confession and contrition." (77)

• "Our work is to teach and preach the gospel in a searching manner, to lay the basis for repentance by showing sinners how much they need the Lord of glory as Savior from their guilt and filth. It is a solemn fact that God has ordained that men and women be saved through preaching." (78)

• "Effective counseling is principally a carrying forward in private of specific applications of the preaching ministry in the church! The gospel message is announced boldly in a public context, then given added effectiveness by a one-to- one follow-up in dealing with particular idols which Christ wants removed from each of our lives." (79)

• "The gospel message is a mirror in which all repentant sinners behold the image of Christ and are being transformed from glory to glory through the power of the Spirit. Do not underestimate it. For the gospel enables those who are new creations to face their own sins squarely, confess them and forsake them. Do not underestimate it. For the gospel brings forgiveness to us through Christ's death." (82)

VIII. Repentance and Sharing Christ

• "Until we have experienced the breaking down of pride by the Holy Spirit, we do not understand what witnessing is all about." (83)

• "The awareness of great weakness paves the way for a thoroughgoing repentance that results in a filling with the Holy Spirit's power. Your conviction of sin is used by the Lord to bring you to claim the victory of grace in Him." (84)

• "These wiles of Satan are countered by honesty in prayer. Honest prayer unmasks your real need and puts you in the presence of a rich Christ who wants to meet you as you really are-"wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked" (Rev. 3:17). (85)

• "So in your confession to God you fight to name your sin-and to give your sin its right name. Then you hand it over to Christ by faith and taste the happiness of guilt forgiven (Ps. 32:1) and find the deliverance from hypocrisy which comes through honest confession (Ps. 32:2-5)."(85)

• "God loves you where you are, not where you have been pretending to be. There is a natural transition now to start loving other sinners where they are, not where they pretend to be- or where you think they should be." (86)

• "Humility and sincere love appeal in any age. But in ours these qualities become especially magnetic."(87)

• "As their repentance deepens they learn to see other people compassionately. They know that God broke through their own thick shell, and that all good in themselves originated with a sovereign invasion from without." (89)

• "You find witnessing power only by going to the throne of grace and coming to Christ to get yourself clean and under the blessing of God. From there you go forth to share what you have received firsthand from the Father. This is the beating heart of Christian witness. In evangelism everything depends upon a humble, self-forgetting boldness before God and humanity. Pray boldly and you will witness boldly (Eph. 6:18-20, 1 Thess. 1:5, Acts 4:29-31). Confess your sins freely before God, and you will have freedom to confess Christ before others." (90)

• "John Calvin says, "Fear hinders us from preaching Christ openly and fearlessly, while the absence of all restraint and disguise in confessing Christ is demanded from His ministers. The remedy for this timidity is to carry the sin directly to God in prayer until He fills the penitent heart with an ongoing love that refuses to be stopped by the resistance of sinners to the gospel." (91)

Epilogue

• "My hope and prayer is that God will continue to use this small book to teach the joy of repentance, humility and a life lived in service to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ." (98)

Notable Content

• Root-sins: pride, unbelief, lust. (15)

• Branch sins and Root sins. (33)

• Reasons for praying privately in coming to Christ: (82)

  1. First, prayer in private makes it more difficult for people to use the counselor as a priest and hopefully brings them to rely on Christ on Christ alone for salvation.

  2. Secondly, prayer alone brings the glory of Christ into sharp focus by moving the counselor out of the sinner's line of vision.

Notes on *Making Faith Magnetic*

Making Faith Magnetic: Five Hidden Themes Our Culture Can't Stop Talking About... And How to Connect Them to Christ, Daniel Strange, (Good Book Company, 2021)

Main Idea/Takeaway

• The gospel of Jesus Christ answers the basic longings of the human heart represented in at least five themes found throughout culture. 

• "This book is about five themes that, consciously or subconsciously, our culture and every culture is talking about...these are five themes that are both subverted and fulfilled in Jesus Christ" (13)

Interaction 

• "D.A. Carson: Intolerance of Tolerance" (46)

• "God gets all the blame and none of the credit." (66)

Table of Contents

I. The Way Ahead

II. The Cosmic Game of Hide-and-Seek

Part 1: The Magnetic Points

III. Totality: A Way to Connect?

IV. Norm: A Way to Live?

V. Deliverance: A Way Out?

VI. Destiny: A Way to Control?

VII. Higher Power: A Way Beyond?

Part 2: The Magnetic Person

VIII. Joining the Dots

IX. Jesus: The Way We Connect

X. Jesus: The Way We Live

XI. Jesus: The Way Out

XII. Jesus: The Way of Control

XIII. Jesus: The Way Beyond

XIV. The Magnetic People

Appendix

Conclusion: The Way From Here

Favorite Quotes by Chapter

I. The Way Ahead

• "Yes, Christians are told to live as "foreigners and exiles" in this world (1 Peter 2 v 11). But we're also called to be the "salt of the earth" and "the light of the world" (Matthew 5 v 13-14)— distinctively different to everyone around us but, to those whom God is calling, magnetically attractive." (12)

• "I'm going to show you five of these points of contact — five hidden themes that our culture can't stop talking about, and how they connect to Christ. We'll call them "magnetic points", because they're ideas to which people are irresistibly drawn over and over again." (14)

• "I've increasingly recognized that to siphon off and compartmentalize evangelism and apologetics from Christian discipleship and ministry is artificial and even unhelpful. What Jesus in the Great Commission calls disciple-making is nothing other than allowing the gospel to transform every part of our lives." (15)

• "If my whole life is connected to the gospel, and if I'm growing as a disciple in every part of my life, then the task of connecting the gospel to other people's lives becomes more natural, because we all face common struggles." (15)

• "lf I'm connecting the dots in my everyday story, then I'll be much better equipped to connect the dots in your everyday story."(15)

II. The Cosmic Game of Hide-and-Seek

• "God has made it clear in everything that has been made that he is present and we are dependent, and that he is present and we are dependent, and that he is personal and we are accountable." (21)

•  "Being made in God's image means we are instinctive worshippers. So when we try to smother reality, we end up making new twisted "realities" which we are devoted to instead. Often we imagine that these realities are less powerful and less personal, which means that we are less dependent, more in control and less accountable. Again, we are extremely creative in the things we consider, commit to and worship as "ultimate".(23)

Part 1: The Magnetic Points

III. Totality: A Way to Connect?

• "The idea of totality is centered around connection. It asks questions like: Who are we as human beings? What's our place in the universe?" (34)

• "In the "above us, only sky" world, romantic relationships often bear the weight that communion with God, as the transcendent being, used to bear." (39)

• "At a deep, subconscious level, people know they have been created for close communion with another - and they seek to find it in romantic human relationships." (40)

IV. Norm: A Way to Live?

• "This second magnetic point is called norm and asks whether there is a way to live — and how we know what that is. As human beings, we know there are rules to be obeyed. We accept that there are "norms"-moral standards and codes- which come from outside of us but to which we must adhere." (44)

• "I'm not the first person to comment that tolerance used to mean the idea of "bearing with" or "putting up with" someone with whom you disagreed. Now tolerance has become, frankly, an intolerance towards anyone who disagrees with me. "Bearing with" has become "bearing down", and "putting up" has become "shutting up". (46)

V. Deliverance: A Way Out?

• "There is more — there must be more. Something is broken and it needs fixing. Such songs are just another example of what has long been labelled in literature and psychology as Sehnsucht: a sense of mystical longing and yearning for happiness and fulfillment in the face of a reality which does not provide it."(54)

• "If loss of identity is the problem, then nationalism will bring deliverance. If loneliness is the problem, then community will bring deliverance. If discrimination is the problem, then justice is the answer — or is that education again?" (55)

• "Death is the final confirmation of our sneaking suspicion that all is not right in the world." (61)

VI. Destiny: A Way to Control?

• "When it comes to the magnetic points, I have a favorite and it's this fourth one. It's called destiny and it asks whether there is a way we can control our lives." (64)

• "What a way to put it: we both "lead" and "undergo" our lives. Isn't that a description of so many people we know or how we ourselves feel?" (65)

• "There's no good power responsible for quiet shifts or pleasant customers, just bad ones." (66)

• "I think it's the irresistible power of destiny that explains our fascination with semi-scientific solutions that promise to "explain" us and give us a prophet-like knowledge of the future." (71) // Culturally, we have an infatuation with “data” for this reason.

VII. Higher Power: A Way Beyond?

• "Remember, our magnetic points are what is left after human beings have suppressed and idolatrously substituted the knowledge of God in creation." (74)

• "...as we tear away and sift through our damaged response to God (seen through the magnetic points), we reveal our point of origin: the revelation of God's eternal power, implying human dependency, and God's divine nature, implying human accountability (Romans 1 v 20)." (74)

• "The fifth and final point is called higher power. It asks whether there is a way beyond the realm of our normal experience — a way to connect with someone or something higher than ourselves. Another word for this is transcendence." (75) 

• "So Western culture today is not "dis-enchanted" but "differently-enchanted". It may not be the case that people believe in "God" or "gods" —  at least, certainly not a personal one." (78)

Part 2: The Magnetic Person

VIII. Joining the Dots

• "the gospel of Jesus Christ does not bypass the magnetic points, but is the subversive fulfilment of the magnetic points." (88)

• "Second, the gospel message is the subversive fulfilment of the magnetic points, but our hope is not in a "what" but in a "who"." (89)

• "all this stuff is not about looking sophisticated, or winning an argument; it's simply about getting better at offering people the person of Jesus. We offer Jesus." (90)

• "Third, in offering Jesus as the subversive fulfilment of the magnetic points, we demonstrate both his magnetic appeal and how appalling idolatry is." (90)

• "The more we show people Jesus, the more- we pray, by God's Holy Spirit- they will see the bankruptcy of any alternative worldview.  And the more they see the shortcomings of idolatry, the more beautiful Jesus is shown to be in contrast." (91)  

• "We've said that when it comes to evangelism, we are persons offering other persons the person of Jesus; so let's not miss that the people we're engaging with are people. That means communicating holistically and humanely." (93)

IX. Jesus: The Way We Connect

• "The aim is to use our words to paint a compelling portrait of Jesus, and invite others to stop and look and consider him for themselves." (99)

• "Through Christ we enjoy connection and communion with God, but also connection and community with each other. After all, if I am connected to Jesus, and you are connected to Jesus, then in a very real way we are connected to one another." (104)

• "In his offer of identity, communion and community, Jesus Christ shows himself to be the subversive fulfilment of the magnetic point of totality." (105)

X. Jesus: The Way We Live

• "We've decided to follow our own script and make our own rules. But we can never escape our need for a standard and a sense of accountability, even if it's only to ourselves. It's hard-wired into us." (109)

• "When it comes to the norm, Jesus doesn't just reveal that there is a standard, he says, I am the standard." (110)

• "Everything that God had revealed in the Old Testament about what makes for human flourishing and for shalom(peace) in our communities was fully realized in Jesus' teaching and in his person." (110)

• "And because Jesus is the standard and the one who is the perfect authority over us, we no longer have to live in fear of tyranny of any kind- we need not be oppressed by anyone else's expectations." (115)

• "Jesus is the standard we all want, and Jesus is the Savior we all need. But here's the thing: you can't have one without the other." (115)

• "although the water is quickly running out of the bath, our Western culture still lives off the capital of a Christian worldview." (116)

• "Our culture's norms and conventions are still related to Jesus' norms written in the Bible, but with a diminishing view of our need for the cross." (116)

XI. Jesus: The Way Out

• "Call me a cynic, but I'm afraid that a stadium rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Ariana Grande, however heart-felt, is not going to deliver us from the war on terror." (121)

• "The certainty of death has been shattered and transformed by Jesus; this was previewed in Lazarus' resurrection and undeniably declared in Jesus' own." (124)

XII. Jesus: The Way of Control

• Lewis: "There is something which unites magic and applied science [i.e.  technology] while separating both from the 'wisdom' of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men; the solution is a technique." (130)

• "although in the 2020s I have access to more information than ever about my personality type, my ancestry, my ethnicity, or the oppressive regime over me, I don't feel more liberated but instead more trapped by my character, my heritage, my genes and my economic status." (131)

• "As our good shepherd, Jesus' control over our lives is neither impersonal nor tyrannical. Our obedience to him is not akin to throwing our hands up and submitting to fate. Instead, we obey in the context of a relationship of love. With Jesus I don't have to choose between powerless love or loveless power." (135)

• "Christians are not those who deny the supernatural realm or the existence of superpowers, but rather those who proclaim Christ's supremacy and reign over them both." (136)

• "In Jesus Christ's sovereign control and tender care we find the subversive fulfilment of the magnetic point of destiny." (138)

XIII. Jesus: The Way Beyond

• "As the theologian Lesslie Newbigin memorably put it, "Christ is the clue to all that is"63 We do not worship a "thing" or an "it" but a someone-someone maximally absolute and maximally personal, who is both transcendent and immanent. We worship one who has reached down to us in grace, the Word made flesh." (140)

• "Jaroslav Pelikan's statement that "Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of super magnet, to pull up out of that history every scrap of metal bearing at least a trace of his name, how much would be left?" (140)

• "With Jesus we're not left wondering about how to connect with God (totality). He comes to be the way that we should follow (norm). He is the one who offers true and final deliverance. He is the one who is Lord of the universe but also the serving Shepherd (destiny)." (143)

XIV. The Magnetic People

• "We are either being formed by Christ or are being deformed by someone else. If we are not being drawn to Christ, we are being drawn away by something else." (148)

• "Our attitude toward God's word is an index of our love for Jesus."(153)

• "Open the Bible with the same sense of expectation you would have were Jesus to come through your front door and sit on the sofa next to you. because in a very real sense, he is. What might change if you came to God's word each day with a prayer for that kind of eagerness." (154)

• "We experience the humble confidence and security in knowing who we are — in knowing we are his. So whatever life throws at us — when we're crushed by criticism, or threatened by danger, or feel like we don't belong — we can remember that we belong to Christ: treasured, safe, secure." (158)

• "And once we are magnetized each week, we are then sent out and scattered into the world to be a magnetic presence. Let me ask you: in the places where God has called you to live your life- your home, your place of work, your places of play- what would it look like to do all things fully magnetized by Jesus and for Jesus?" (160)

Appendix

• "For those of us given the responsibility to teach and preach God's word, our goal, in the power of the Holy Spirit, is to offer Christ to people, both Christians and non-Christians." (165)

• "The magnetic points can be extremely helpful scaffolding in our desire to construct messages that connect and confront people with the offer of Christ. It's there to help people look at him." (168)

Notable Content

• "Bavinck discerns five of these magnetic points- these themes to which humans are repeatedly drawn:

1.Totality: A way to connect?

2.Norm: A way to live?

3.Deliverance: a way out?

4.Destiny: a way we control?

5.Higher power: a way beyond?

• These scholars argue that as a society we have become disenchanted/enchanted as ever. (77)

• Four practical steps to engaging faithfully and fruitfully with culture:

  1. Entering: Stepping into the world and listening to the story. 

  2. Exploring: Searching for elements of grace and the idols attached to them. 

  3. Exposing: Showing up the idols as destructive frauds.

  4. Evangelizing: Showing off the gospel of Jesus Christ as subversive fulfilment.

• Roger Scruton: "An Apology for thinking" (108)

• We all have authorities in our lives and we regard them with differing levels of importance, trust and obedience, based on at least three questions: (111)

  1. First, do they have the knowledge?

  2. Second, what about their ethical character?

  3. Third, are they effective?

• All of these three things have to be in place in order for someone to have our trust, respect and obedience. Someone can have all the knowledge but be totally ineffective. Someone can get things done but be taking the wrong course of action entirely. Someone can have great integrity but now know what they're talking about." (111)

• Let's consider what being pulled away might look like, using the framework of the magnetic points:

  • "In terms of totality and the way to connect, we can be pulled back into thinking that there is no big plan for God to bring "all things together" 

  • "When it comes to the norm and the way to live, perhaps we see God's standards as rules that constrict us for rules' sake, rather than as rules that liberate us for our good." (149)

  • "For deliverance and the way out, perhaps we subtly and almost imperceptibility start to think that we are delivered by our routines and our purity." (150)

  • "In terms of destiny and the way we control, perhaps even as Christians we can feel like victims. God's sovereign plan for our lives feels more like that infamous fickle finger of fate rather than loving fatherly care." (150)

  • "Finally, in terms of the higher power and the way beyond, we experience the culmination of all the "pulls" I've just mentioned. In our daily words, actions, habits and rituals we gradually demonstrate that there are "loves of our lives" that are higher and deeper than our love for Christ." (151)

• "How do we become these kinds of fully magnetized followers of Jesus?"

  1. Loving Jesus

  2. Loving Our Identity in Jesus

  3. Loving Jesus' Body: the Church