Quotes from Scot McKnight

I believe that the broad sweep of the way in which prayer works in the Bible — and I'm thinking here of Jonah and the repentance of Nineveh — teaches us that God, in his sovereignty, has established a kind of contingency in the universe, and that God genuinely interacts with humans who pray in such a way that the universe changes as a result of our prayers.

John does not adjudicate how to engage in politics. Instead, John instructs Christians how to discern the moral character of governments and politicians and policies and laws.

What Jesus has in mind here is not fear about speaking but profound respect for the gloriousness of the gospel, a desire to honor God, and an approach to gospeling that does the most service to Christ. In other words, we need to ask if speaking up in a given situation will honor or vilify Christ, and then to act accordingly.

The book of Revelation requires us to take a stand for the Lamb in this world. To read it well we must learn to think "theo-politically," or to say this another way, the entire book of Revelation is about public discipleship.

The first principle of spiritual formation is this: A spiritually formed person loves God and others.

James taught me that there is nothing that shows the world what God is like more clearly than when we love our enemies. Despite the reality that throughout the New Testament the cross is not only how God saves us, it is how we witness to that salvation.

Because they love God and others, they are willing to check their passions and will in order to do God's will, to further God's justice, and to express their longing that God act to establish his will and kingdom.

Babylon will never be the new Jerusalem; it cannot be Christianized.

I'm aware that "enemy love" still scandalizes many a fundamentalist and liberal alike. Who wants a Savior who loves the enemies we want to kill? Who wants to witness to the God whose love falls like rain on the just and the unjust alike? Who wants a God who longs to heal those who have hurt us so they hurt no more? Who wants a Christ who comes to us in the pain we want to run from?

Love one another strenuously because it's hard.

God is love so all God does is loving.

Jesus wanted far more than to be accepted into one's life. He wanted to take over, and his essential call was to trust him enough to surrender one's entire being to him.

God's love entails a covenant commitment on the part of with us, and that covenant commitment means a promise to be with us and for us, and God's covenant is shaped toward our redemption.

God loves us and seeks our redemption, at times through angels.

What the church most needs is not heroes of faith, but faithful followers of Jesus.