I am almost through the audiobook. I MUST have the printed version so I can circle, underline, highlight the so many nuggets of deep insight Chris brings to the table.

Thank you Michael for sharing your experience with Vibram shoes. I would most likely have not known about this had it not been for reading your blog. Thanks, I love the idea.

Let's not forget Don, that the world we are to be at odds with is not people ("non-Christians"), but a particular system of thinking and values. That, Don, finds its way in all of us and so we need to watch out before we point fingers.

Let's not forget also Don, that Jesus was loved and constantly surrounded by sinners (and of the worst kind). If we are to be like Jesus, we have to have the same effect, if not (and that's what Dan Merchant is pointing out, that Christians in US don't have that reputation) we should seriously reconsider our ways.

I share the sentiment of ExistentialPunk and of course your gut feeling about this issue. If we don't allow ourselves to be (de)constructed we run the risk of a mere intellectual exercise that can at best produce mental orgasm.

It is in this space that enduring satisfaction is found. Resolutions bring things to an end. The various paradoxes God has intentionally placed in the fabric of our lives keep things going, keep excitement on. This of course if we learn to live with/savor them and not try to solve/get them out of our life.

Blake, I enjoyed imensley your depiction of these tension. Your choice of words was soothing. Love it !!!

It's more helpful to see the Bible as a means to an end than to see it as an end in itself. The Bible is a guide to the Truth, not the truth itself.

Thank you for expressing this needed positioning. I am wholeheartedly sharing your thoughts. Well done !!! Well said !!!

Thank you so much for posting this excerpt. This is the first time I read this. Wow ... the sheer depths and clarity of thought of this young man (he was 39 when he died in 1968).

So inspiring! So inspiring !!!

It is true that we need to embrace the paradoxes of God's nature, i.e. transcendence/immanence etc., but we also have to take a fresh look at what we mean by them when we use them. These are terms that have accumulated a lot of ballast in time.

Your last point is a great illustration for what I wrote today in my blog. God can be to me the same He is to you, but not necessarily. If I am unique (which I am) then His relationship to me will be "customized" so to speak, i.e. it has to be unique to me in some way.

http://tinyurl.com/7w6jsc

I am totally with you. If there's any "evangelizing" being done ... well, that must be God doing it, it is His deal. We're to create a safe space to just be.