Quotes from Scot McKnight

What grabs us is the shocking disproportion between what we perceive to be the sin (anger) and its consequences (eternal punishment). In the words of R. T. France, "ordinary insults may betray an attitude of contempt which God takes extremely seriously.

Revelation "is not about a rapture out of this world but about faithful discipleship in this world.

The church God wants is one brimming with difference,

To love enemies breaks through the self barrier into divine space.

Second, there is a clear eschatological focus in the word "blessed."9 If a focus of the Old Testament was on present-life blessings for Torah observance, there is another dimension that deconstructs injustice and sets the tone for Israel's hope: the future blessing of God in the kingdom when all things will be put right; no text in the Old Testament fits more here than Isaiah 61.10 This second dimension shapes the Beatitudes because Jesus' focus is on future blessing.

Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization.

I love my wife, Kris; I do not love Kris's words. I encounter Kris through her words, but I am summoned to love her, not her words. Sometimes I say to her, "I love what you say to me," but that is a form of expression. What I'm really saying is, "I love you, and your words communicate your love for me.

We in the Western world are obsessed with our individual relationship with God, which leads us to read the Bible as morsels of blessings and promises and as Rorschach inkblots. But reading the Bible as Story opens up a need so deep we sometimes aren't aware we need it: oneness with others under the King who rules his Kingdom.

This has to be emphasized, because today too many of us emphasize kingdom but ignore the Holy Spirit and Pentecost and church—as if kingdom meant nothing more than justice and peace and love in the world (or in their country or in their state or in their local village).

It is far too easy for Protestants to take the sting from Jesus' words by thinking what Jesus was really saying was not that his followers had to do more, but that they were to trust in the righteousness of Christ while the scribes and Pharisees were trusting in themselves. Or to say the Pharisees were externally righteous only. For this view, "surpasses" is really about kind of righteousness and not degree.

Oneness cannot be achieved just between God and self; rather, oneness involves God, self, and others, and the world around us.

One of my favorite kingdom preachers is Minneapolis pastor of Sanctuary Covenant Church, Efrem Smith.