Quotes from Kevin Vanhoozer

The call to self-emptying will always be unpopular to those whose pockets and closets are full. What

The long-term challenge for disciples, however, is to represent the gospel not by seeking literally to duplicate past scenes but rather by continuing to follow Jesus into the present in ways that are both faithful and (necessarily) creative.

Pastor-theologians exist to embody the evangelical mood, an indicative declaration ("He is risen! He is Lord!") and a concomitant way of being that is attuned to the world as already-not-yet made new in Jesus Christ.

The church is biblical, therefore, when it seeks to embody the words in the power of the Spirit and so become a living commentary. The church is thus not only the "people of the book" but also "the (lived) interpretation of the book.

Doctrine is less theoretical than it is theatrical, a matter of doing—speaking and showing—what we have heard and understood.

when the church responds to the word of God as it ought, the church demonstrates the love of God and the mind of Christ, in word and in deed. Just as the church comes to understand the love of God by attending to the story of Jesus and getting caught up in the gospel story, so the church in turn renders that story intelligible when it lives out the truth of the gospel.

To act out truth—to correspond to what is—is ultimately to participate in the way and life of Jesus Christ, the one who is truth incarnate: the embodied word, wisdom, and love of God.

Here is the central paradox: the pastor is a public figure who must make himself nothing, who must speak not to attract attention to himself but rather to point away from himself—unlike most contemporary celebrities. The pastor must make truth claims to win people not to his own way of thinking but to God's way. The pastor must succeed, not by increasing his own social status but, if need be, by decreasing it.

North Americans think they know how to speak Christian, but what they say is actually a gross distortion. Either people do not know Christian words at all, or they have heard them but do not know what they mean, or they think they know what they mean when in fact they mean something completely different.

The distinct experiential end in question in the church, communion with God and others, neither justifies nor fits many marketing means. The increase of the kingdom of God owes more to the work of the Spirit than to Madison Avenue.

The biblical scholar Wilhelm de Wette generalized the idea: "The spirit of Protestantism . . . leads necessarily to political freedom.

O conhecimento bÃ