Quotes from Kevin J. Vanhoozer

Public theology is first and foremost a reaction against the tendency to privatize the faith, restricting it to the question of an individual's salvation. As we shall see in later chapters, the church is not a collection of saved individuals but the culmination of the plan of salvation: to create a people of God.

Christian doctrine grows disciples by teaching them to perceive, name, and act in ways that demonstrate the reality of the gospel, speaking and showing what is "in Christ.

Imagination is biblical reasoning in its Sunday best, lost in wonder at the creativity of the Creator. Being

Pastor-theologians know something that others do not know, and they know it because the Bible tells them so. To be instructed by the Spirit in the school of the Scriptures is to be, as Peter and John had been, "with Jesus." What pastor-theologians know is something quite particular (what God was doing in Christ) but has enormous, even universal, implications.

Christian doctrine is what the church believes, teaches, and confesses as it prays and suffers, serves and obeys, celebrates and awaits the coming of the kingdom of God. —Jaroslav Pelikan

The English term "martyr" comes from the Greek martys, "witness." Søren Kierkegaard defines witness as "someone who directly demonstrates the truth of the doctrine he proclaims—directly, yes, partly by its being the truth within him, … partly by his volunteering his personal self and saying: See, now, if you can force me to deny this doctrine.

Pastor-theologians should not have to choose between a "social" and a "spiritual" gospel, for there is only one gospel (Gal. 1:6–7), "an eternal gospel" that concerns the heavens and the earth (Rev. 14:6). The

Being in Christ is both gift and task, privilege and responsibility. Exaggerate the gift, and you risk antinomian complacency; exaggerate the responsibility, and you risk legalistic anxiety.

the church, like television, is always educating; the only question is, What is it teaching?

What is the message? Can faith bereft of specific beliefs speak understanding? If so, understanding of what? My concern is that the only thing Cox has to say to young people seeking spirituality is "Do good."13 But why should we do good? And what is the good if it is not somehow rooted in the nature and work of God? Cox's Age of the Spirit needs a normative Word. For while belief without faith is empty, faith without belief is blind.

What it means" is ultimately not a matter of theory only but of practice, not a matter of sheer knowledge but of wisdom.

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

The truth is that there is a world of difference between looking beautiful and being beautiful.

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 bíblico é necessário para que os cristãos compreendam sua identidade em Cristo (i.e., o que significa ser santo) e para que sejam melhores cidadãos do céu aqui na Terra (Ef 2.19; Fp 3.20). p. 152